KADUNA Crisis: Killing Still on, City is Unsafe
- Details
- Category: Latest
- Published on Wednesday, 20 June 2012 18:41
- Written by Elombah.com
Gunshots, lynching and destruction of properties are still going on around Kaduna town, irrespective of the Curfew imposed by the state government. There are riots and killings in Unguwan dosa, malali, around NNPC and Kujama - Sabo area, a resident told elombah.com. The violence is predominantly around Unguwan Yero,
Badarawa, Malali and parts of Unguwan Dosa, where houses, cars and other properties are razed down or destroyed. Casualty figure keeps on increasing hour by hour according to emergency officials.
Soldiers are doing their best to control the situation, as they are applying minimal force on these arsonists.
Meanwhile residents of Kaduna stayed indoors on Wednesday as a heavy deployment of soldiers and police enforced a ban on movements after three days of religious violence while death toll has climbed to 100.
"Fighting is still going on right now between Christians and Muslims, and the security men that were on ground has ran away", a resident said.
The round-the-clock state-wide curfew was first imposed after three church bombings in the state on Sunday sparked reprisal violence by Christian mobs who attacked Muslims and burned some of their bodies.
The lockdown was briefly lifted on Monday afternoon, but a flare up of violence, concentrated in Kaduna city’s mainly Muslim northern district, led authorities to renew the curfew.
“The curfew is in force and people are indoors. It’s quiet everywhere,” said Nasiru Abdullahi, a resident of the Tadun Wada area where some of Monday’s rioting took place.
Kaduna city resident Ahmado Yaro, a prominent opposition politician in the state, said the security deployment has increased.
“Soldiers and policemen are guarding roundabouts and some sensitive places. There are more policemen on patrol today” said Yaro, state leader of the Congress for Progressive Change party.
National police spokesman Frank Mba said he was “confident the curfew would be relaxed soon,” insisting that the police “have enough men on the ground to manage any eventuality.”
But a reporter for elombah.com said; "Situation in kaduna still bad and the claim that there are security patrol is false... people are left to defend themselves. From kaduna state university to comand junction there no security except at station round about and kalapanzin baracks".
Another resident said "the situation in Kaduna seems to getting out of hand, at the moment I hear gunshots at u\dosa non stop, as I am posting this right now; they are shooting in Malali right.... U/Dosa is close to Malali in Kaduna."
Burned vehicles and destroyed shops were still visible around Kaduna city on Tuesday, according to an AFP reporter who toured the city with the military.
The violence over the last three days has included suicide bombings at a church in Kaduna city and two churches in the nearby city of Zaria that killed at least 16 people.
The attacks were claimed by the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed hundreds of people across northern Nigeria in recent months.
After the church bombings, Christian mobs roamed the streets of the state capital, burning mosques and killing at least 36 people, aside those that died from the blast.
Latest update:
Fresh reprisal attack in Kujama, Kaduna State, that claimed three persons this evening which is currently under control by the armed soldiers have arrived at the scene.
The corpses were still on the streets, and that several other people were injured.
Kujama is the headquarter of Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, and is a few kilometres from the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), a subsidiary of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The fight pitted Christians against Muslims, and that heavy gun shots were heard from the warring sides. Several of the injured persons were taken to the hospital.
This came up just some hours after the arrival of the Chiefs securities of the Federation who unexpectly hold a close-door meeting with the Kaduna State Governor Patrick Yakowa.
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