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Schoolyard fight turns ugly
20/11/2003 19:06 - (SA)
Kazaure - A schoolyard row between 12-year-old girls escalated into a sectarian riot that left 11 churches burned, 40 shops looted and a young man fighting for his life, witnesses said here on Thursday.
Muslim rioters took to the streets of the northern Nigerian town of Kazaure on Tuesday targeting Christian businesses and churches after a policeman shot a protester in the throat, police and officials said.
Trouble had been brewing for two weeks after a Christian schoolgirl, responding to schoolyard taunts from Muslim playmates, allegedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed, an education official said.
On Tuesday a group of Muslim radicals descended on the school to protest the head teacher's alleged reluctance to take action against the girl.
During the ensuing dispute a police officer shot a 17-year-old boy in the neck. The boy has been transferred to the nearby city of Kano for treatment.
Trouble spilled out into the street as the enraged mob ransacked and burned out around 40 businesses, starting with Christian-owned stalls but eventually also looting Muslim stores, including two owned by their imam.
A hostel housing members of the National Youth Service Corps - students working on government-run civil projects - was also burned down.
On Thursday heavily armed riot police were deployed in the medium-sized market town, protecting districts inhabited by the Christian minority and searching vehicles for weapons.
Surajo Ado, whose tractor parts store was destroyed, said: "Jobless youths took advantage of this small dispute, and caused this problem. This was something we never expected."
A local chieftain, Najib Adamu, agreed: "I do not believe that this destruction was done in the name of religion, although religion was used as an excuse.
"There is so much frustration here because of the social problems, and people are taking out their frustration in this violent way," he said.
A police source said that eight rioters had so far been arrested and that officers would swoop on the ringleaders after reinforcements arrived from Kano and Jiagawa State capital Dutse.
He said the female head teacher had been taken into police protection.
"This was a dispute between children," lamented Reverend Daniel Bala, Kazaure's representative in the Christian Association of Nigeria. "We must learn to have tolerance, to live in peace."
Sectarian tensions are rarely far from the surface in northern Nigeria, where a Muslim majority lives side-by-side with Christian immigrants from the south of Africa's most populous country.
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