30,000 displaced by religious riots - Red Cross

More than 30,000 people were displaced during four days of religious riots in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, the Nigerian Red Cross said on Thursday. Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said more than 1,000 people were injured while over 200 died in the clashes between Christians and Muslims. The violence had erupted last week after Muslim militants protested against a 16 November article in the Thisday daily dismissing their opposition to the Miss World contest which was due to be held in Nigeria. The writer, Isioma Daniel, suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would have approved of the beauty pageant and may even have chosen one of the contestants for a wife. "More than 7,000 families were displaced in the violence, and if you multiply the number by an average of five people a family you get more than 30,000," Bawa told IRIN. The Nigerian security forces brought the situation in Kaduna under control on Sunday, although tension was still high in the city. Bawa said some of those who had fled their homes had started going back. The Red Cross, he said, planned to conduct a fresh needs assessment in the city to determine the numbers yet to return and their current plight. Humanitarian workers in Kaduna said many of the displaced remained in the police and military barracks where they had taken refuge, afraid of renewed violence if they went home. Thousands of residents, especially Christians from southern Nigeria, were leaving the city and returning to their home regions, they said. Fears of religious violence spread to other parts of Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north after the pro-Islamic Zamfara State government issued a fatwa - religious edict - urging Muslims to kill Daniel. The Kaduna-based New Nigerian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Zamfara Deputy Governor Aliyu Shinkafi, called on Muslims to kill Daniel at a rally on Monday in the state capital, Gusau. He remarked that her case was similar to that of the author, Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. "Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of the ThisDay writer can be shed," Shinkafi was quoted as saying. The federal government described the fatwa as being of no effect. "The constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the laws do not provide for anyone who has done something like Thisday has done to be killed," Minister of Information Jerry Gana told reporters. A relaxed form of Shari'ah had existed for decades in northern Nigeria. However, two years ago, Zamfara introduced a stricter version of the Islamic code. Some 11 other states have since followed suit, heightening tension with the largely Christian south. More than 2,000 people died in sectarian violence in Kaduna two years ago over attempts by the state government to introduce strict Shari’ah. The decision of the Zamfara authorities to impose the death sentence on the Thisday reporter appeared to contradict the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, which had already accepted the repeated apologies issued by the newspaper for carrying the report.