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Topic: NIGERIA DEPLOYS TROOPS IN MUSLIM CITY AFTER DEATHS

Mojo Long
Advocate
Advocate # 304

posted

NIGERIA DEPLOYS TROOPS IN MUSLIM CITY AFTER DEATHS

quote:
Nigeria deploys troops in Muslim city after deaths
03 Jun 2005 18:06:00 GMT

Source: Reuters

SOKOTO, Nigeria, June 3 (Reuters) - Nigeria deployed hundreds of soldiers in the far northwestern Islamic city of Sokoto on Friday to prevent further violence between rival religious groups on a Muslim day of prayer.

Some 500 soldiers and policemen patrolled the streets and guarded the main mosque of Sokoto, on the fringes of the Sahara desert. Fighting between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims has killed about a dozen people there in the past two months.

"The government will deal with anyone caught breaking the peace and already some arrests were made. Adequate measures were taken to protect people, lives and property," Sokoto State Governor Attahiru Bafarawa said in a state-wide broadcast.

The city was tense at the end of a week in which two people have died and at least a dozen wounded in several attacks. In the latest violence, about 100 Sunni militants armed with machetes killed a Shi'ite man on Thursday.

Religious, ethnic and communal conflicts have killed more than 20,000 people in Nigeria since it returned to democracy six years ago. The nation of 140 million people is split roughly evenly between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

The Sokoto dispute is ostensibly about doctrinal differences between Shi'ites and Sunnis and access to the central mosque.

But Bafarawa, who belongs to an opposition party, has said members of Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party are instigating the violence for political reasons.

The Sunni governor's stance that Shi'ites should have access to the mosque has made him unpopular with some Sunnis.

The region's religious authority, the Sultan of Sokoto, has appealed to Sunni and Shi'ite leaders to help stop the violence.

A letter has been circulating in Sokoto since Monday in which Shi'ites are threatened with attacks unless they leave town or renounce their faith at the central mosque. Worshippers say at least 200 people have renounced the Shi'ite faith.

Posts: 83 | From: Kirksville, Missouri, USA | Registered: Sep 2002 | IP: Logged

Greg
Senior Advocate
Advocate # 838

Advocate Rated:

posted

What a useless bunch of clowns! If they kill each other for religious purposes, what do you suppose they would do to an infidel like you and me. This is the devil's religion, inspired by the words of a counterfeiting demon to a clueless and jobless parasite.

___________________
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves...

Posts: 665 | Registered: Nov 2004 | IP: Logged

Mojo Long
Advocate
Advocate # 304

posted

The quagmire continues:

quote:
KANO, 6 June (IRIN) - Hundreds of armed riot police have been deployed in Nigeria's northern city of Sokoto, where Sunni protesters razed a government building in escalating violence with rival Shi'ites that could engulf the mainly Islamic region, government officials said on Monday.

Hundreds of protesters who besieged the Sokoto North local government secretariat and set it alight on Friday were angered by police arrest of a Sunni cleric Umar Dan-Maishiyya, accused by the authorities of inciting violent attacks against the Shi'ite minority, Sokoto state government spokesman Mustapha Shehu said.

"In their anger they completely burned down the secretariat building," Shehu told reporters. "The government has reacted by deploying policemen to prevent further violence," he added.

More than a dozen people have died in Sokoto since February in tit-for-tat violence between the Sunni majority and Shi'ite minority, centred on demands by Shi'ites for access to the city's biggest mosque to preach their brand of Islam.

Founded after a jihad launched by revered cleric Shehu Uthman dan Fodio in the early 19th century, Sokoto, which lies 450 km north west of the federal capital Abuja, is regarded as the most important Islamic centre in Nigeria.

It is also the home to the Sultan of Sokoto, a direct descendent of dan Fodio and the spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims, who make up nearly half the country's population of more than 126 million people.

In the past three weeks there has been fighting every Friday, the Islamic days for prayers, between the two groups at the city's main mosque as Shi'ites tried to gain access and Sunnis tried to keep them out.

Two weeks ago a Sunni mob attacked the Shi'ite seminary in the city and burnt it down, and last Thursday a prominent Shi'ite leader was attacked and killed in his house.

Sokoto State governor Attahiru Bafarawa, who is a Sunni, has attracted the anger of Sunni preachers such as Dan-Maishiyya by suggesting that Shi'ites be allowed to use the city's main mosque. Dan-Maishiyya's consequent arrest for provocative preaching sparked Friday's violence.

Sokoto police commissioner, Abdul Bello, said on Sunday that 20 people were arrested for Friday's violence but have yet to be charged.

"We now have the situation under control," Bello said.

Last week 38 people arrested for previous violence were taken to court for public order offences.

Posts: 83 | From: Kirksville, Missouri, USA | Registered: Sep 2002 | IP: Logged

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