Four killed in religious tit-for-tat riots

MUSLIM and Christian mobs killed four people in three Nigerian cities yesterday, extending a week of tit-for-tat religious riots that have claimed at least 151 lives.

Uncertainty over Nigeria’s political future is aggravating regional, ethnic and religious rivalries ahead of elections next year.

Rioting began in the mainly Muslim north and revenge attacks followed in the Christian south.

Christian youths armed with machetes and clubs attacked Muslims in the southeastern city of Enugu, beating one motorcycle taxi driver to death and burning a mosque.

James Obi, a market trader who was part of the mob, said they killed the taxi bike rider after a rumour that a Muslim policeman killed a Christian boy.

“We got angry and we killed one of them. His corpse has been set ablaze,” he said.

A stray bullet killed an eight-year-old Christian girl, escalating the situation. Rioters blocked off the area with burning barricades.

In the northern town of Kotangora, Muslim mobs killed three people, torched nine churches and looted shops owned by minority Christians, police said.

In northeastern Potiskum, Islamic youths burned shops, churches and houses belonging to Christians. Police said 65 rioters were arrested.

The religious violence first broke out last Saturday in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, when a Muslim protest against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed ran out of control and 28 mostly Christian people were killed.

Religious violence has killed thousands in Nigeria over the past six years.

Meanwhile, militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta have issued pictures of nine foreign oil worker hostages. One showed the captives sitting on a bench in a forest with militants in army fatigues pointing assault rifles at their heads.

Militants denied government statements that talks were under way to secure their release and threatened more attacks on oil installations and workers.