At least 10 killed in religious clashes in Adamawa state

At least 10 people have been killed in two days of clashes between the Muslim minority and Christian majority in Numan town in Adamawa State, near Nigeria's eastern border with Cameroon, residents said on Wednesday. Fighting broke out on Tuesday, sparked off by a dispute over the location of a new mosque in the mainly Christian town on the banks of the Benue river, Josephat Nonga, a resident told IRIN by telephone. Clashes between the rival communities continued on Wednesday, he added. Nonga said members of the mainly Christian Bachama ethnic group had in the past complained about the building of a new mosque near the residence of their chief, Fred Soditi Bongo. “On Tuesday some Christian youths attacked construction workers building the mosque, partially destroying its minaret,” he said. Nonga said violence subsequently spread to the rest of the town as rival groups attacked each other with machetes and clubs and set buildings ablaze, leaving at least 10 people dead. Ibrahim Adamu, a Muslim resident of Numan, said three other mosques in the town had been destroyed and he saw the bodies of six Muslims killed in the violence. He quoted other residents as saying they had seen the bodies of more people who had been killed in other parts of the town. The fighting in Adamawa is the latest episode of religious violence in Nigeria’s middle-belt region, wedged between the predominantly-Islamic north and largely-Christian south. Last month, the Nigerian Red Cross quoted residents of Yelwa in Plateau State as saying more than 600 Muslims were killed there when militiamen from the mainly Christian Tarok ethnic group launched an attack on the small town. The Yelwa massacre provoked the reprisal killing of Christians in Kano, the largest ciy in northern Nigeria. President Olusegun Obasanjo subsequently declared a state of emergency in Plateau State to clamp down on the religious violence and prevent it from spreading to other parts of Africa's most populous country. Relations between followers of the two faiths have worsened since 12 overwhelmingly Muslim states in northern Nigeria adopted strict Islamic Shari’ah law over the past four years. Many Christians in this country of 126 million people fear that Muslims are seeking hegemony over the whole of Nigeria through the introduction of Shari’ah. The Islamic legal code prescribes harsh punishments for many offences, including public flogging for drinking alcohol, stoning to death for adultery and the amputation of limbs for stealing.