PREGNANT WOMEN and children were among the hundreds killed in central Nigeria on Sunday morning in the latest round of ethnic and religious clashes to hit the region.
Local rights activists put the death toll at more than 250, while government-run radio is already reporting that 500 people were slaughtered in a nocturnal raid on three villages on the fringes of Jos, the capital of Plateau state.
According to locals, Muslim Hausa-Fulani fighters raided the mainly Christian villages some time after midnight on Sunday morning, firing gunshots into the air in order to scare villagers out of their beds.
Many of those fleeing were then caught and hacked to death with machetes in what is believed to be revenge for attacks on Fulanis in January, in which about 326 were reported killed.
According to Mark Lipdo, of the Christian charity Stefanos Foundation, the village of Zot had been almost wiped out. “We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run; these were the ones that were slaughtered.”
Security forces have now been put on red alert, as acting president Goodluck Jonathan ordered troops into the region to stop outsiders from coming in with more weapons and fighters. He called an emergency meeting yesterday with all security service chiefs to discuss strategies to prevent clashes from spreading to neighbouring states.
According to Robin Waudo of the Red Cross, 800 people have since fled Jos, as hospitals struggled to deal with the influx of injured people.
“We are seeing multiple lacerations from machetes, abdominal wounds as well as burn injuries”, thought to be a result of houses being burned down, said Dr Simon Jekat Yiltok of Jos University Teaching Hospital, by telephone from the city.
“It was dark and people couldn’t see” he said, leaving them little chance when they ran into the Fulani fighters waiting along the roadsides.
Mr Wuado said the security situation was still in disarray, and that the Red Cross had only managed to evacuate 23 people to hospital, as they could so far only reach one village.
The ongoing tension in Jos appears to be rooted in resentment between indigenous, mostly Christian groups, and migrants from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north, who first came to the area in 1907 to work in the city’s booming tin mining industry. The two communities lived a largely peaceful co-existence until 15-20 years ago, when the population began to expand dramatically but the number of jobs did not.
“The Hausas are now claiming that Jos belongs to them, but the natives are saying that they won’t tolerate it,” says Larabas Rikko, a lecturer in urban and regional planning at the University of Jos.
The area is now home to one million people, compared to 600,000 in 1991 and 155,000 in 1973.
The attacks come at a time of political crisis in Nigeria. Mr Jonathan previously sent troops to Jos in January.
But his authority in the country is uncertain now that the elected president, Umaru Yar’Adua, has returned from Saudi Arabia where he spent three months receiving health treatment.