By Tom Ashby KAZAURE, Nigeria, Nov 21 (Reuters) - A goat market crammed with herders sprang up on Friday next to blackened, roofless church buildings torched by Muslim rioters earlier this week in Kazaure, northern Nigeria. Under a nearby tree sat a group of heavily armed soldiers, deployed to prevent any further looting and destruction of the tiny Christian minority in the mainly Muslim town. "There were 12 churches here. None was spared," said Pentecostal pastor Uche Ugiri, surveying the charred remains of his Deeper Life Ministry. Scores of Christians fled Kazaure after Tuesday's rampage, which gutted 54 shops run by Christians as well as the churches. No one was killed in the rampage, sparked by an angry crowd of Islamic radicals who went to the local secondary school to demand a response of the secular authorities to an alleged blasphemy case three weeks earlier. "Most of the ministers and pastors just ran helter-skelter to save themselves. We will think twice about staying here now," said Ugiri. The violence rekindled fears of widespread religious conflict in Nigeria, a country of 120 million people roughly split between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. Hundreds have died in religious riots in the past three years since 12 northern states adopted Islamic sharia law. The emir of Kazaure played down the religious significance of the attack. "During Ramadan people tend to be more devoted to God, more sensitive," he told Reuters at his mud brick palace typical of the semi-desert region. Others blamed the violence on a small Shiite group that has found a fertile breeding ground for its radical ideology among the growing ranks of poor and disaffected youth. "A small Shiite group incited the whole thing, taking advantage of politics and poverty and mobilising the youth to burn and loot in the name of religion," said Abdulkadir Adamu, the traditional chief of the affected area of Kazaure. A policeman monitoring the protest at the local secondary school shot and wounded a 13-year-old boy which inflamed tensions. The crowd, numbering in the thousands, then went on a spree of looting and destruction in the minority Christian enclave. "I heard some people say these are fanatical Muslims," said Eze Aloy, a Christian community leader whose shop and house were destroyed. "We have made this place our home but now we are afraid and many have left." The town's authorities were keen to stem the exodus of Christians for fear of tit-for-tat killings in Kano, just 80 km (50 miles) to the south, which has seen hundreds killed in religious riots over the past three years. "This issue could ignite problems in the whole country," said Ahmed Rufai Inuwa, a state government official sent to Kazaure to investigate. "No religion says you can take the law into your own hands." Riots in Kano two years ago sparked revenge killings in southeastern Nigeria, where Christian Ibos are in the majority over Muslims.
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