JOS, Nigeria – Muslim volunteers discovered Friday that sectarian violence in central Nigeria this week extended beyond the long-restive city of Jos and into the burned shell of what used to be a small village near it.
Both Christians and Muslims died during the violence that began Sunday in the central Nigerian city once known as a prime tourist destination in West Africa. The nonprofit group Human Rights Watch puts the death toll among both religions at more than 200. More than 5,000 people have been displaced.
However, as Muslim volunteers arrived in the village of Kurujantar — about 18 miles (30 kilometers)south of Jos — they found corpses shoved three-at-a-time into sewer pits, pushed into communal wells and scattered in bushes. One volunteer held up the charred body of an infant that lay inside a cardboard box.
Nearly all the mud-walled homes in the one-time mining town suffered fire damage or had been destroyed. The central mosque, where residents say both the young and old sought refuge during an attack Tuesday, sat burned, ashes spread across the floor where the faithful once prayed.
Community leader Wardhead Umaru Baza, 58, said Friday that more than 300 were dead from the violence, which lasted seven hours. He said he hid in a hole as rioters armed with new and locally made firearms shot residents in the mostly Muslim village.
In Jos city, Plateau state, about 200 Muslim youths attacked Christians near St. Michael’s Catholic Church, according to local sources of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The human rights organization reported that Muslim youths congregated to renovate a house next to St. Michael’s Catholic Church, owned by a man who allegedly killed three Christians in the November 2008 sectarian violence in Jos.
But instead of renovating, the youths reportedly assaulted a female passerby before attacking St. Michael’s Church. They also set fire to several churches, including a Christ Apostolic Church and two Evangelical Church of West Africa churches, as well as local houses and businesses.
In retaliation, Christian youths launched a counter-attack, including lighting mosques on fire, and soon violence spread to other areas of Jos.
Seriously, what do you think the Christians should have done, turn the other cheek? Invite the crazed Jihadists into other churches, so they could burn them down too?