Violence Between Muslims and Christians Continues: An Estimated 500 Christians Have Died

(Jihad Watch) Muslim mobs brandishing machetes and clubs attacked Christians in the streets of Kano on Wednesday as security forces struggled to quell a two-day rampage to avenge a massacre of hundreds of Nigerian Muslims. Police confirmed at least 30 killed in strife engulfing this northern city, where thousands — mostly minority Christians — cowered in army barracks and police stations as mobs attacked victims outside. Witnesses spoke of scores more slaughtered. “I saw them put an old tire on his neck and set him ablaze,” said a 30-year old Christian, Barry Owoyemi, of a dead Christian neighbor. Owoyemi was whisked to safety by police who fired guns in the air to scare away the attackers. The rampage exploded Tuesday following a demonstration by thousands of Muslims protesting the slaying of up to 600 Muslims by a predominantly Christian ethnic group last week in the central Nigeria town Yelwa. The Kano situation is an unfortunate development and just a reverberation of what happened in Yelwa,” said Remi Oyo, spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo. On Tuesday, Kano’s most influential cleric launched the Muslim protest from the main mosque, telling protesters that the Yelwa killings were part of a supposed Western conspiracy against followers of Islam. The May 2 and May 4 attacks on Yelwa by ethnic Tarok Christians left 500 to 600 dead in the largely Muslim Hausa-speaking town, according to a Red Cross official who traveled there. In February, Muslim militants were blamed for the slaughter of almost 50 people in Yelwa — including Christians who took refuge in a church.