Sectarian violence becoming a genocide? Nigeria

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Mrs.Lucysnow, Mar 11, 2010.

  1. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Forty-nine people are to be charged with murder after a sectarian massacre in Nigeria left hundreds dead at the weekend, it was reported today.

    Police spokesman Mohammed Lerama told the BBC 200 people had been arrested since the pre-dawn attacks, near the town of Jos, in which children, women and elderly men were hacked with machetes and burned.

    Most of the 49 facing murder charges are Muslims from the Fulani group, he said.

    The weekend massacre, which happened on Sunday morning, came less than two months after sectarian killings in the region killed more than 300 people, most of them Muslims.

    Nigeria is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and a predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been taking place in central Nigeria – the "middle belt", where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

    The weekend killings added to the tally of thousands who already have perished in Africa's most populous country in the last decade amid religious and political tension. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people.

    Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004, while more than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/nigeria-sectarian-massacre-murder-charges

    This is obviously a retaliation for all the muslims who were killed several weeks ago. Its interesting that though there are more massacres going on between the two groups they still refrain from calling the ethnic religious murders as attempts at genocide by both groups.

    When is it okay to call sectarian violence a genocide?

    Note that this time around it was mostly women and children which begs the question of why the men were spared or why they were not present in the town. The message being sent by those who killed only the women and children is one that there is no future for that particular group.
     

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