Posted on 11/23/2002 3:25:24 AM PST by kattracks
Riots raged on in the northern Nigerian city Kaduna after violence there forced beauty pageant organisers to abandon plans to stage Miss World in Nigeria.
Fighting which began as protest by Muslim youths against a newspaper article on the pageant has now degenerated into a bloody street war between Muslims and Christians, witnesses say.
An AFP journalist was forced to join around a 1,000 refugees hiding in the Kronenbourg brewery in the south of the city near the main road to Abuja, protected by troops and an armoured car.
"We had to run for our lives. They came to my house in two cars and tried to burn it. We really don't know what is happening," 20-year-old Julie Adabo told AFP.
Another woman said that a gang came to kill her after burning her home and only let her live when she lied and claimed to be a Muslim. One man said he had seen his brother cut down before him.
As she spoke, gunfire could be heard from the Trikania district around the plant and several buildings could be seen in flames.
Rioting in Kaduna on Thursday claimed at least 100 lives. Many more are since thought to have perished.
"Fighting continued until 11.30 pm (2230) GMT in this area. It started again at 6.30 am. We hear gunfire permanently," said the plant's French manager Regis Bouffartigue.
"The soldiers shoot and the demonstrators return fire. According to the soldiers, the demonstrators even have AK47s (assault rifles)," he said.
Miss World's organisers announced early Saturday that they would quit Nigeria and seek to hold the December 7 ceremony, which was set for the Nigerian capital Abuja, in London instead.
Trouble erupted in Kaduna on Wednesday when Muslim youths, incensed by an article on the pageant, burned down a local newspaper office.
On Thursday the fighting became more general, as rival Muslim and Christian groups roamed the religiously mixed city, burning homes and murdering in the street.
Troops and police responded with lethal force, and by Friday morning the Red Cross was already reporting a conservative estimate of 100 dead. That figure must now be much higher.
Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said Friday that as the fighting had spread from the mainly Muslim north of the city to the mixed, poorer south, it became impossible to track casualties.
Similar clashes that broke out in 2000 claimed at least 2,000 lives.
Anyone here want to place bets as to which group is doing the "burning and murdering" and which is merely defending itself?????
And between Muslims and Buddhists, Muslims and Jews, Muslims and ...
Gee, the list seems endless, doesn't it???
Muslims are determined to conquer the world, by the sword... That we have this excrement happening...? Surprises me not a all...
You know very well that the moment you raise your hand to defend yourself, you are EQUALLY GUILTY. That's why the media go to such pains to say "there were clashes between Moslems and Christians" as if no one had started it.
Back to Brainwashing 101 with you, you've flunked.
Soon.
Someday...
Islam is the Anti-Christ...imho.
Now, this would be all well and good, except for one small detail- she's Muslim.
And while that might sound like a small thing...? That Islam is about conquest and "conversion" (or death), with the caveat that all lies are allowed, if it's for Islam???
She wonders why I'm not interested, even though I find her... ahem... "interesting...?"
There will always be a level of distrust... Because of what she believes in.
I don't know if this makes me a religious "bigot," or whatever... but I'm not really prepared to take the chance... You get my drift...??? :-\
It's crystal clear to anyone with eyes in their head that the Christian "gangs" are trying to kill the Moslem gangs before they can murder more Christians, which they are hell-bent on doing.
You'd think that if this was all about an "insult" in a newspaper, that burning down the newspaper office and killing 4 people would have been sufficient. But no, the arson and murder are going to go on for days, maybe weeks, even now that the pageant has fled the country. These "Moslem groups" are doing what they have been encouraged or even ORDERED to do, it's so obvious.
More likely, it was French surrender-monkeys and "reporters'
helping Islamic terrorists to murder and kill.
It's pretty obvious since all muslims ever do is slaughter everyone they can find. They've been slaughtering in the millions now, and the US is on the wrong side, and has been for many years now. We should be ridding the world of this evil, not protecting it and allowing it to flourish.
I am tired of hearing these idiot newscastors say that this fighting is over a remark about a beauty pageant. The Christians are fighting for their lives against a group of satanic devils, and the media treats it like Monday night football...
A sudden war in Nigeria: How Kaduna exploded February 25, 2000
KADUNA, Nigeria (AP) -- On Monday, there was a war here.
It began in the morning, when angry words over religious traditions turned to fistfights. By late afternoon machetes were drawn, people were burned alive, and gunfire echoed through the streets, as the violence snaked through this northern city with a fury that burned out entire blocks, killed hundreds of people and left thousands more homeless.
The fighting raged until well into the night and continued sporadically for two more days until finally, in the face of hundreds of heavily armed soldiers, it faded to a palpable if mostly silent fury.
On the surface, it is a war about God.
"NO SHARIA," declares red graffiti splashed across the wall of a wrecked gas station. "SHARIA YA MUTU" -- "Sharia or Death" reads another message scrawled in black paint in Hausa, the main indigenous language of northern Nigeria.
Sharia, or Islamic law, has become a flashpoint in Nigeria, a nation riven by regular bouts of bloody religious and ethnic violence.
Calls to establish sharia are spreading and recently, the Kaduna state government began examining a proposal to introduce it. While Muslim leaders say Christians would not be bound by sharia, the proposal to introduce what is effectively a state religion has terrified and infuriated them.
"We don't like something about this sharia," said Emmanuel Nduka, a 25-year-old small trader who joined in the fighting. "They want us to live our lives like we have their religion."
On Monday morning, Christians marched to protest the sharia proposal. What that ignited was horrific even by Nigerian standards.
Late in the week, the wreckage was everywhere. It goes for block after block down Ahmadu Bello War, Kaduna's main thoroughfare, past burned-out businesses, skeletons of destroyed cars and soldiers with assault rifles milling at checkpoints.
The once tranquil neighborhood of Hanyan Banki, where Christians and Muslims used to live together peacefully, now is completely abandoned. There is nothing left but concrete houses that are either wrecked or empty.
The Millennium Departments Stores is now roofless, the Baptist Theological Seminary in ruins. At a small barber shop, the name on the sign is burned away but the pictures of smiling well-coiffed heads remain. In the wreckage of a gas station, a lone man listens to tinny Arabic music on a handheld radio, watching a small, brown puppy wander in the garbage.
Hundreds of refugees crowd into the safety of army camps and hotel courtyards or carry suitcases and buckets and bundles of clothes as they flee the town.
After the 4 p.m. curfew, when the streets are nearly empty, each passing car leaves the tinkling sound of broken glass in its wake as it drives down debris-filled streets.
Many people know exactly who is to blame -- with the most bitter adherents of each religion pointing fingers at the other.
"They attacked us so we had to reinforce and battle back," said Nduka. "The war has not calmed down," he added as a hot, dry afternoon wind blew through the city, one of the largest in northern Nigeria. "Why do you see everybody quiet now? Because of the soldiers."
More than 200 people were killed in the fighting, their bodies jamming local morgues, though some in town say the number could be much higher. Which side was hurt the worst by the violence is not clear.
An uneasy calm had been restored to Kaduna by Wednesday, but sporadic violence continued in outlying areas and in the neighboring towns of Kafanchan and Zaria.
Christian and Muslim leaders promised to work together to restore peace and were meeting in search of ways to stop the violence from again tearing through the troubled city.
By Thursday, a few refugees were trickling back into town, but others, still fearful, were leaving. Some stores opened during the few hours when there was no curfew, and slammed shut in early afternoon.
Many observers see sharia as more than simply a religious issue. It is interwoven with ethnic divisions -- Muslims are overwhelmingly Hausas or Fulanis from the north, while most Christians are southerners from other ethnic groups.
In addition, calls for sharia have grown as power has shifted away from northerners -- who dominate the military, which ruled Nigeria for 15 years until a democratic government was elected last year.
Last month, sharia officially went into affect in neighboring Zamfara state, which is overwhelmingly Muslim. Two other states in Nigeria's largely Muslim north passed sharia bills this week and others -- including Kaduna, which is about 40 percent Christian -- are considering following suit.
Muslim law prohibits such things as drinking alcohol and also calls for separate schools and public transportation for men and women. Islamic courts have been established to hold trials and punish Muslims.
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