Soldiers open fire on youths in Nigerian town tense after religious killings; 2 killed

Nigerian soldiers open fire on youths; 2 killed

JOS, Nigeria — Soldiers opened fire on a crowd after curfew and killed two people, witnesses said Wednesday, just days after more than 200 people including dozens of children were slaughtered in several mostly Christian villages nearby.

Hundreds of people swarmed the streets of Jos on Wednesday morning, where one truck’s windshield was a spider web of bullet holes with the word “rejoice” scrawled on it.

Residents had tried to stop the truck late Tuesday from entering the town after curfew late Tuesday, fearing it was carrying fighters or weapons. People have accused police and military of failing to provide enough security to the villages that were attacked Sunday morning.

The military later arrived, asked the youth to leave, and then opened fire on them and the truck. Two were killed and five others were wounded, said Angela Ogobri, a nurse from a local hospital.

An Army colonel prevented AP reporters from seeing the dead. The truck was later found to be carrying only cattle and baskets.

At least 200 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday in several villages near Jos, according to residents, aid groups and journalists. The violence came less than two months after sectarian killings in this region left more than 300 dead, most of them Muslims.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, in Nigeria’s “middle belt,” where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

The weekend killings add to the tally of thousands who already have perished in Africa’s most populous country in the last decade due to religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.