imagine no religion …

Violence grips Nigeria:

Deadly clashes between Christians and Muslim in Nigeria continue ahead of April elections.

Fresh violence has flared up in the Nigerian flashpoint city of Jos after clashes between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria last week left 35 people dead.

The incidents, reported by police on Sunday, were the latest in a cycle of violence in volatile central Nigeria, where religious rioting has killed scores in recent years.

“Thirty-five people have been killed in sectarian violence in Tafawa Balewa on Thursday,” said Bauchi police commissioner Abdulkadir Mohammed Indabawa.

Only last week police had reported riots that had killed four people and arson attacks that had destroyed five mosques and 50 houses.

In neighbouring Plateau state’s capital of Jos meanwhile, more than a dozen people had died after clashes sparked by the stabbing Friday of university students by Muslim villagers, Muslim and Christian community leaders said.

Churches, mosques, filling stations, houses and food kiosks were set ablaze over the weekend.

On Sunday the military sent in reinforcements aided by helicopters for “aggressive patrols,” according to a military spokesman, who said they had made 27 arrests.

Religious fault lines
Eliza Griswold examines the complex relationship between Muslims and Christians along the tenth parallel.

Author and journalist Eliza Griswold spent seven years travelling through the fault lines of Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines trying to understand the origins and the reasons of this religious divide.

It is also the subject of her book, The Tenth Parallel, where she tells us the conflict is often about natural resources and land as much as it is about religion.