Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Hundreds arrested in Nigeria riots

Authorities crack down as death toll in Nigeria's post-election violence rises to at least 80

Police in northern Nigeria have arrested hundreds of people after deadly protests in opposition strongholds in the mostly Muslim north following President Goodluck Jonathan's election victory. 

At least 80 people have been killed in major cities alone, hundreds injured and thousands displaced by the violence after Jonathan won Saturday's vote. His rival, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, says the result was rigged.
Those thought to be supporters of the ruling party have been stabbed, hacked and shot to death by angry youths since Jonathan, a Christian southerner, defeated Buhari, a Muslim northerner. Churches, homes and shops have been set ablaze by Muslims, as have mosques in retaliation.
The mortuary at Bara Dikko Hospital in the northern city of Kaduna was overflowing. It had 20 bodies in its cold rooms. The charred remains of at least another 20 people lay on the floor.
Kaduna's deputy police commissioner, Nwodibo Ekechukwu, said hundreds of people had been arrested.
"We're talking of over 400 suspects. They are in police custody. They were arrested for various acts of mischief, criminality and homicide," he said.
Police further north, in Kano, the region's most populous city, said that at least 50 people had been arrested there.
Health workers collected blackened corpses in the streets of Kaduna on Tuesday, one of them apparently "necklaced" with a flaming tyre. A mosque was still burning, and the remains of tyres and barricades littered the streets.
Ekechukwu said security was gradually improving and that a 24-hour curfew was being reviewed daily. Soldiers manned checkpoints every few hundred metres in parts of the city.
There is also unrest in smaller towns, where the military presence is not so heavy. The burned-out shells of trucks and cars lay along the 200km stretch of road between Kano and Kaduna, a witness said.
Police in Bauchi state said four members of the National Youth Corps, which helped run the elections, and two policemen, were killed in an attack on Tuesday. The head of the local Christian association said 10 of the association's members had been killed.
Homes of members of the ruling People's Democratic Party, the Independent National Electoral Commission's offices and police stations have been among the main targets.
Africa's most populous nation is scheduled to complete its cycle of elections with governorship votes in its 36 states on April 26, but diplomats question whether that will be possible in large parts of the north.
"It's hard to see how the electoral commission will be able to hold credible elections in states where there is an undeclared state of emergency," said a Western diplomat.
curtsy-Times Live

 

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