NIGERIA: AT LEAST 105 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED IN RIOTS STOKED BY MUSLIM FURY OVER STAGING OF MISS WORLD BEAUTY CONTEST

Record ID: 500936

  • Title: NIGERIA: AT LEAST 105 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED IN RIOTS STOKED BY MUSLIM FURY OVER STAGING OF MISS WORLD BEAUTY CONTEST
  • Date: 23rd November 2002
  • Summary: (EU) KADUNA, NIGERIA (NOVEMBER 22, 2002) (REUTERS) SLV BODIES IN STREET; MV POLICEMAN STANDING IN STREET (8 SHOTS) SLV STREETS MV/SLV COFFIN WITH BODY BEING CARRIED
  • Embargoed: 8th December 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: KADUNA, NIGERIA
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Crime,Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA4BF6UKJK7D7CQ3ZD80T0J4V4F
  • Story Text: At least 105 people have been killed in riots in Nigeria stoked by Muslim fury over the country's staging of the Miss World contest next month.
    More than 500 people have also been injured in the street riots in the northern city of Kaduna over the past two days (November 20-21), where enraged youths have torched churches and mosques.
    One local resident Bello Yawa, who lost two of his sons during Friday morning's (November 22) attack by Muslims said the police urged them to leave. Many have since walked into local police stations fearing for their lives.
    On Thursday (November 21) Muslims attacked a Christian church leaving rubble and bodies behind them.
    "If the government does not take any action when Muslims are offended then they are justified to take whatever action they see fit," said one local resident.
    The violence, sparked by a newspaper article suggesting the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the Miss World beauty queens, resembled massive sectarian bloodletting in the region two years ago that killed thousands.
    The bloody mayhem then stemmed from non-Muslim opposition to plans to introduce Islamic sharia law in Kaduna state in the predominantly Muslim north, but this time Muslim fury has been touched off by the Miss World pageant set for December 7.
    Nigeria won the right to stage the contest after Nigerian Agbani Darego won the last event in South Africa.
    Residents of Kaduna, a city scarred by burned out buildings and with overturned cars littering its streets, said sporadic shooting could be heard on Friday morning as soldiers and police battled rioters despite a 24-hour curfew.
    Kaduna residents said Muslims were accusing authorities of trying to bar them from Friday prayers with the curfew.
    Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said 521 injured people had been evacuated to Kaduna hospitals by Thursday night.
    The riots erupted on Wednesday (November 20) when rampaging Muslim youths burned the Kaduna offices of the independent Lagos-based daily This Day, whose November 16 article sparked the violence.
    The unrest quickly turned into a general protest against Miss World contest, to be held in Abuja.
    After the shooting on Friday morning in Kaduna, the streets of the city of four million people were teeming by midday. Residents said they were defying the curfew in anger at the local governor.
    Witnesses said angry youths tore down the re-election campaign posters of Governor Ahmed Makarfi, a political ally of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
    Soldiers and police have been put on the alert in northern Nigeria's biggest city of Kano, just north of Kaduna.
    Relations between the Muslim majority and a significant and assertive Christian minority in Kaduna state have always been tense.
    More than 90 Miss World contestants, who arrived in Nigeria on November 10 despite raging controversy around this year's pageant, were confined to their hotel in Abuja on Friday.
    Pageant organisers have insisted the event will go ahead.
    This Day newspaper ran its third apology for its controversial report on Thursday's front page since it first published the story. It said the article went out in error.
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