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Nigeria restricts troops amid Muslim-Christian clashes

26 January 2010 01:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ayaz Abdulla â€“ APA. Nigeria restricted troop movements Monday to avoid soldiers being dragged into Muslim-Christian clashes as a local said around 60 more bodies had been recovered, some of them decapitated, APA reports quoting AFP.
With tensions running high in the central Plateau state after last week’s bloodshed, police said they had arrested more than 300 people suspected of a role in the four days of violence.
The authorities have not issued a death toll but figures from medical and aid workers, religious and community leaders and Human Rights Watch put the number of dead at more than 550.
The head of the armed forces, Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Danbazzau, said troops were ordered to remain at their postings and only travel with permission to avoid attempts to pull the army into the violence.
"We are aware of the fact that there is tension in the country," he told reporters in Abuja. "We also got intelligence information that some people are trying to infiltrate our ranks," he said.
"Generally, we want to ensure that we control the movement of troops to protect them against people who will try to take advantage of them, and to protect the system," Danbazzau said.
The soldiers also needed to be available for security operations, he said.
Troops were deployed last week to help restore order after the clashes, which erupted in the central city of Jos on Sunday last week but spread to neighbouring villages and towns.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Paul Dike, also warned members of the armed forces to steer clear of politics.
"Meddling in political issues does not complement our constitutional role in any way, shape or form," Dike said.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has only been under civilian rule for 15 years since a first military coup in 1966.
The head of a Muslim team of volunteers burying bodies from the violence told AFP meanwhile that 61 more bodies had been retrieved from two villages near Jos.
"Some of them have been decapitated, dismembered and the body parts hoisted on stakes," Mohammed Shittu told an AFP reporter in the northern city of Kaduna.
Locals said last week that at least 150 bodies were recovered from wells.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), relying on the reports from Muslim leaders, told AFP that most of those killed were Muslims.
The police in Plateau State said Monday they had rounded up 313 people suspected of part in the inter-religious violence.
State police spokesman Mohammed Lerama could not immediately say what they would be charged with.
Some of those arrested over the last few days were moved to the federal capital Abuja, police and government sources said.
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan pledged last week that the ringleaders of the violence would be brought to justice "no matter how highly placed".
Jonathan has reacted angrily to the outburst of violence, which has flared before in Jos with about 200 people killed in religious clashes in the city in late 2008.
The latest violence, which erupted on January 17, has seen around 18,000 people flee their homes with buildings and cars torched and attackers reported to have been armed machetes as well as guns.
Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang, a former senior air force officer, held a meeting on Sunday with religious leaders to find a way to end the flashes of unrest.
Nigeria’s 150-million-strong population is divided almost equally between followers of Islam and Christianity.