Nigeria

Some 500 suspects remained detained Thursday, December 11, for their alleged involvement in rioting sparked by Muslim attacks on Christians, that left at least six pastors dead and some 500 others killed.

At least some 400 people have been killed and thousands forced to flee their homes in the central Nigerian city of Jos where Christians and Muslims clashed in the worst sectarian violence in Africa’s most populous nation in years. Fighting began Friday, November 28, amid a dispute over the result of a local election, witnesses said Saturday, November 29.

A major umbrella group representing numerous Christian denominations in Nigeria urged authorities Tuesday, September 2, to detain those responsible for the burning of an evangelical church in Ilorin, the capital of this African nation’s Kwara State.

Blaming the death of their leader on Christian prayers, an Islamist group that launched a hate campaign in response to an evangelistic event in 2004 is reportedly attacking Christians in this Kwara state capital with renewed virulence, area Christians said.

Christians in two churches that were were extensively damaged last year during religious violence in northern Nigeria were without places of worship Sunday, August 3, after authorities reportedly ordered them to vacate their premises.

Christians in several areas of Nigeria’s Kano State remained anxious Tuesday, March 4, after a government-backed mob armed with machetes reportedly set fire to a church building, before looting and dismantling the property, while a bishop narrowly escaped death, rights watchers said.

A Muslim man’s failed attempt to marry a young Christian woman resulted in him accusing her of "blasphemy", triggering violence in the Nigerian town of Yana that left at least one person dead, seven Christians hospitalized and five churches destroyed, a Christian news agency reported Tuesday, February 11.

Tensions remained high Saturday, December 15, in Nigeria’s north-eastern city of Bauchi after up to 10 people were killed, 30 critically injured and three churches reportedly set on fire in clashes between Muslim and Christian communities, BosNewsLife monitored.

Ten persons have been killed and three churches set on fire after Muslim high school students in this northern Nigerian city began a rampage on Tuesday (December 11) that spilled into the city. Today tensions were still high in the area.

Christians said violence over elections in the Sumaila area this month included a strong religious element, with Muslims killing one Christian in an attack on a Christian settlement.

Nigeria’s central government will deploy more police to the nation’s troubled state of Kaduna “to fight crime”, after two Christians were reportedly killed there by suspected Muslim militants, BosNewsLife learned Wednesday, October 24.

One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.

Nigeria’s government continued preparations Saturday, October 6, for an emergency conference on religious tensions after rampaging Muslims reportedly killed at least nine Christians, injured 61 others, destroyed nine churches and displaced over 500 people in the town of Tudun Wada in the nation’s, mainly Muslim, Kano State.

Native Christian missionaries in one of the most remote and religiously tense areas of Nigeria continued their activities Friday, May 18, amid reports that a violent storm destroyed an entire community.

Two days after the killing of a Christian teacher in this town in northern Nigeria, Muslim extremists set fire to a church building of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in the Chanchanya section.