Nigeria:
past bombings killing Boko Haram
now carried interfaith
New attacks on Christian churches claim the lives of at least 47 people and over 150 injured, including explosions and the violence against Muslims.
18 JUNE 2012, NIGERIA
Alianza Espanola, Spain
Protestante Digital (Jun18,2k12) in Spanish
— reposted here, mechanical translation, Politicarp
At least thirty-six people died last Sunday in Nigeria on June 17 following several attacks on three Christian churches (two Protestant and one Catholic), to which were added later acts of revenge attacks in the Muslim population.
The initial slaughter, attributed to the followers of the Islamic sect Boko Haram, was carried out with vehicles loaded with explosives in the cities of Zaria and Kaduna. The car passed the usual security perimeter that usually surrounds religious facilities located in northern Nigeria, Muslim-majority.
As happened last Sunday, the operations were in sync when ceremonies were held inside. The blasts claimed the lives of 36 people and left more than 150 injured, although there are fears that the final balance is much higher. "I saw many bodies on the floor, but do not know how many dead or wounded there," said one resident of Kaduna, shortly after the blasts.
Proceedings against the church, attributed to the movement's followers Boko Haram, whose name means "non-Islamic education is sin" and which seeks to impose Islamic law have taken place in a province where inter-religious tension is higher. The area experienced heavy fighting in 2000 with more than a thousand dead and bloody riots occurred following the disputed presidential elections last year.
CHRISTIANS VIOLENT REACTION
The attacks experienced by a Catholic church and two Protestants in the northern state of Kaduna led to the mobilization of Christian youth bands both in this country as elsewhere in the south. According to local sources, the extremists, armed with machetes and sticks, barricaded the highway linking the capital Abuja regional, state, killing several people for Islamic beliefs, undetermined number ranging between eleven and twenty.
Last weekend another wave of bombings punished the town of Jos, also marked by a serious history of fighting. Apparently, the strategy of the terrorists appears to be aimed not only to intimidate the enemy considered Christian community, but also to exacerbate the tension in a group of 170 million inhabitants, 50% divided between the Christian confessions and the followers of Allah, and the latter are already getting.
The troubled past of Nigeria has created a Muslim-majority religious segregation in the north and Christian south, a circumstance that is generalized in the so-called Middle Belt, a region of central Nigeria characterized by the diversity of peoples and cultures.
Sources: AFP, EFE Protestant Digital © 2012
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