More killing by Muslims, members of the “peaceful” faith, this time in Africa.
As the year 2010 comes to an end, I wonder what the total number of fatalities either directly or indirectly associated with religion is? TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Reuters
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A radical Islamist sect which has claimed responsibility for Christmas Eve bombings of Nigerian churches is believed to be behind the killing of three more people at a hospital, police said on Wednesday.
The three victims, including a senior police officer, were killed on Tuesday when men fired shots in a teaching hospital in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and one of two cities where churches were bombed on Friday.
“An investigation has already commenced but I can tell you that we believe the killings must have been carried out by the Boko Haram since it was their mode of operations,” the Borno state police public relations officer said.
Boko Haram said on its website on Tuesday it was behind the Christmas Eve bombings of churches in Maiduguri and the central city of Jos.
The group, whose name means “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria, is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. It demands the introduction of Islamic law across Nigeria.
Police said at least 80 people were killed in the Jos bombings and subsequent clashes between Muslim and Christian youths there. Six people died in the Maiduguri bombings.
Maiduguri sits in one of Nigeria’s poorest regions near its northeastern borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with more than 140 million people, is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Boko Haram’s views are not espoused by most Nigerian Muslims.
Nigeria is preparing for a fiercely contested presidential election in April and can ill-afford an insecurity crisis.
It was shaken by car bomb attacks in the capital Abuja in October, claimed by a rebel group in the oil-producing Niger Delta, a region where violence has also flared up in the last month.
(Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Peter Graff)