Nigerian Troops on Alert After 200 Killed in Clashes (Update1)
(Adds acting president’s action in first paragraph.)
By Paul Okolo and Ardo Abdullahi Hazzad
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s acting President Goodluck Jonathan placed security forces on “red alert” around the north central city of Jos after renewed sectarian violence in the city claimed about 200 lives.
The victims, most of them Christians, died in attacks early today in the village of Dogo na Hauwa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) south of Jos, which has been at the center of deadly Christian-Muslim tension, according to Mark Lipdo, the spokesman for a Christian non-governmental organization.
“The security services are on top of the situation,” Ima Niboro, spokesman for Jonathan, said today in an e-mailed statement from Abuja, the country’s capital. Jonathan is consulting with security chiefs on the situation and has directed troops to deal with those responsible for the violence, the statement said.
More than 400 people died and 4,000 people were injured in three days of clashes between Christians and Muslims that occurred in Jos in mid January, according to Civil Rights Congress, a Nigerian human-rights group.
There are conflicting accounts of why that violence broke out in the city, which is about 200 kilometers northeast of the West African country’s capital, Abuja. Some reports blame a dispute over the rebuilding of a house destroyed in a clash more than a year ago, while the city’s police said it was the result of an attack by Muslims on Christians in a church, according to Human Rights Watch.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with more than 140 million people, is divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.
--Editor: John Simpson, Ben Livesey
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Okolo in Abuja at pokolo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
To contact the reporter on this story: Ardo Abdullahi Hazzad in Bauchi, Nigeria, via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
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Location of Jos in Nigeria
According to witness and media reports, at least two hundred people in Nigeria have been killed after pastoralists and villagers clashed near the city of , which has been the source of repeated tension between Christians and Muslims.

Local authorities, however, contradicted witness reports, saying that there were eight casualties, as did Mark Lipdo, an aid worker for the Stefanus Foundation charity, who reported that at least a hundred people were dead.

Witness reports state that pastoralists started firing into the air in the village of Dogo Nahawa, about five kilometres south of Jos, at night, and attacked those who emerged from their homes. "They came around three o'clock in the morning and they started shooting into the air. The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes," commented Peter Jang, who lives in the village, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

According to the  news agency, some of the victims were children.

Acting Nigerian president  said he had placed national troops on "red alert" following the clashes. "The acting president has placed all the security forces in the plateau and neighbouring states on red alert so as to stem any cross-border dimensions to this latest conflict," read a statement released by his office. Armed forces are already present in Jos.

"The security services are on top of the situation," said Jonathan's spokesman Ima Niboro in an email statement to the  news service.

In January, at least 400 people were killed and a further four thousand injured in the city of Jos after tensions between Christians and Muslims.