Nigeria's Nightmare Continues

Rioting in Nigeria continues unabated following the initial riots where Muslims attacked Christian churches and started a killing spree. Christians responded, not by turning the other cheek, but attacking Muslims who started this latest conflict.

Rioters have killed scores of people here, mostly Muslims, after burning their homes, businesses and mosques in the worst violence yet linked to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper. The violence in Nigeria began with attacks on Christians in the northern part of the country last week by Muslims infuriated over the cartoons.

Now old ethnic and political tensions between Muslims in the north and Christians here in the south have been reignited, with at least 33 bodies still visible on the streets of Onitsha on Thursday and a local organization that has tried to collect the scattered corpses reporting that it has already picked up 80 others.

The cycle of tit-for-tat sectarian violence has pushed the death toll in the last week well beyond 100, making Nigeria the hardest-hit country so far in the caricature controversy.

The main thoroughfare leading into the city across the Niger River was covered in bodies of Muslim Hausas who had tried to flee rampaging bands of youths, witnesses said. Many of the victims appeared to have been beaten to death; most of the bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned.

It's curious that the Times focuses on the Muslim mosques that were destroyed, didn't have the photos of the Christian churches that were destroyed in the initial riots.

The most recent cycle began in Borno State, where riots broke out over the Danish cartoons, killing at least 18 people. Muslim rioters burned churches and the homes and businesses of Christians.

In Bauchi State, riots were set off last week when a Christian teacher took a Koran away from a Muslim student who was reading it without permission in class, according to Nigerian newspaper accounts. Muslims were incensed because it is considered a desecration to touch the Koran without performing ritual ablutions. Twenty-five people were killed.

So, what's the lesson learned in Bauchi State? A Christian teacher isn't allowed to control his class and can't touch a Koran because any attempt to do so will result in rioting. Gotcha.

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive",