NIGERIA: Family shot dead in country's ethnically and religiously mixed Plateau state increasing fears of renewed violence between Christians and Muslims

Record ID: 235415

  • Title: NIGERIA: Family shot dead in country's ethnically and religiously mixed Plateau state increasing fears of renewed violence between Christians and Muslims
  • Date: 29th December 2011
  • Summary: BODIES OF THE VICTIMS ON THE GROUND
  • Embargoed: 13th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Crime,Politics,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAA9E0P0O199B4BOE3SARCO7G91
  • Story Text: Armed Fulani herdsmen shot dead three members of a family in an attack in Nigeria's ethnically and religiously mixed Plateau state on Wednesday (December 28), witnesses and officials said.
    The attack has increased fears of renewed violence between Christians and Muslims in the area.
    Mary Pam escaped the house where her family were killed.
    "When the Fulani herdsmen came around late in the night I escaped through the window but they then killed my son, his wife, and daughter," she said.
    Plateau is an area of ethnic and religious rivalries over land and power between local people and migrants from other areas. These often take the form of sectarian strife between Christian and Muslim communities.
    Chairman of the Christian Association Nigeria, Dafes Philip, said killings were not religious, but political.
    "Now we see not just a political fight to me, because if it were a political fight, it would have been either with PDP fighting ACN or fighting ANPP or fighting any other political parties. But this is people fighting either the church or the mosque that do not support them. So if they want to fight government they should go to government. Let them go and attack government institutions and leave us alone." he said.
    Similar sentiments were made by a spokesperson for Muslims in Jos, Sani Mudi.
    "We are totally against it, we condemn it. Nobody is doing it on behalf of Muslims and anybody who claims to do it on behalf of Muslims, it is a lie, they are doing it for themselves." he said.
    A series of bombings by Islamist militants across Nigeria on Christmas Day killed over two dozen people, raising fears of a sectarian civil war.
    The attacks included a bombing at a church in the Plateau state capital of Jos.
    The Boko Haram Islamist sect claimed responsibility for the blasts.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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