- Title: NIGERIA: Herdsmen kill at least 100 in attacks on Nigerian villages
- Date: 17th March 2014
- Summary: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES KADUNA, NIGERIA (MARCH 15, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BURNT HOUSES IN VILLAGE / SOUND OF WOMEN WAILING CAN BE HEARD PEOPLE CLEARING DEAD BODIES SECURITY OPERATIVES AND RESIDENTS LOOKING ON
- Embargoed: 1st April 2014 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Nigeria
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA9P8EL9TGGFC7PXM9CB4GJE8C6
- Story Text: Gunmen shot, hacked and burned to death at least 100 people and razed homes in central Nigeria, a region riven by disputes over land, religion and ethnicity, local officials and witnesses said on Sunday (March 16).
Police confirmed the raids by Fulani herdsman at around 11 p.m. on Friday (March 14) on three villages in Kaduna state, but declined to give a death toll.
Hundreds have been killed in the past year in clashes pitting the cattle-herding and largely Muslim Fulani people against mostly Christian settled communities like the Berom in Nigeria's volatile "Middle Belt", where its mostly Christian south and Muslim north meet.
The unrest in central Nigeria is not usually linked to the insurgency in the northeast by Boko Haram, an al Qaeda-linked group which wants to impose Islamic law in northern Nigeria.
However, analysts said there is a risk the insurgents will try to stoke central Nigeria's conflict. Although most of the Islamist sect's attacks are contained further north, it did claim a 2011 Christmas Day bomb attack at a church in the central city of Jos.
Human Rights Watch in December said sectarian clashes in the religiously mixed central region had killed 3,000 people since 2010, adding that Nigerian authorities had largely ignored the violence, an accusation they denied.
Though it sometimes takes on a sectarian character, the violence is fundamentally driven by decades-old land disputes between semi-nomadic, cattle-keeping communities such as the Fulani and settled farming peoples such as the Berom, both often armed with automatic weapons.
Post-election violence in 2011 in Kaduna state resulted in around 800 deaths in three days, in what was triggered by northern Muslim grievances about political alienation but quickly turned into ethnically-driven killing. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None