- Title: NIGERIA: Thirteen people killed in violence in central town of Jos
- Date: 31st August 2011
- Summary: JOS, NIGERIA (AUGUST 29, 2011) (REUTERS) PEOPLE STANDING ALONG THE ROAD, WATCHING TROOPS IN THE STREET VARIOUS OF MILITARY HELICOPTER FLYING ROAD BLOCKED WITH STONES YOUNG MEN ARMING THEMSELVES WITH STONES SMOKE RISING MORE OF MEN ARMING THEMSELVES WITH STICKS PEOPLE IN THE STREET PERSON HOLDING A STONE VARIOUS OF MILITARY YOUTHS IN A PICK-UP VAN VARIOUS OF SMOKE PEOPLE IN THE STREET WITH TROOPS PEOPLE WATCHING VARIOUS OF TYRES BURNING ON THE ROAD PEOPLE WATCHING MORE OF TYRES BURNING
- Embargoed: 15th September 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Conflict,Religion
- Reuters ID: LVA64PBGFUO1J7VGZKPNYMVI7S9V
- Story Text: Thirteen people died in clashes between Christian youths and Muslims celebrating the Eid-al-Fitr holiday in the Nigerian city of Jos the army and a local hospital said on Tuesday (August 30).
Gangs of armed youths attacked Muslims as they gathered to celebrate the last day of Ramadan on Monday (August 29). They set fire to cars, leading some to fight back.
The city, straddling the "Middle Belt" between Nigeria's mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, is a flash point for ethnic and sectarian tensions between the two faiths.
A doctor at the Jos University Teaching Hospital told journalists 13 bodies of people killed in the violence had been transferred to its mortuary.
Sixty vehicles including motorcycles were burned, and one soldier was also critically wounded.
Security forces are already being accused of failing to prevent near-daily attacks by an Islamist sect in the northeast, which claimed Friday's deadly bomb attack on U.N. offices in Abuja that killed 23.
Nigeria has a roughly equal Christian-Muslim population and more than 200 ethnic groups live side by side in the West African country largely peacefully. But religious violence flares up from time to time especially in Jos. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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