Christians Under Attack

Unconfirmed reports said the death toll from the protests in the northern Borno and Katsina states had risen from three to over a dozen.

The private Guardian newspaper quoted a spokesman for the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, as saying that Rev. Fr. Michael of the Maiduguri Diocese was burnt in his apartment while the residence of the Bishop of the Diocese was set on fire.

The protests in Borno state, where most of the casualty were recorded, reportedly started off peacefully in the state capital, Maiduguri, before it was hijacked by hoodlums, who went around with petrol and old tyres burning homes and churches.

Nigerian authorities have reinforced the police deployment with armed troops in Maiduguri to restore order to the affected areas.

Though hundreds of Muslims under the aegis of the Muslim Society of Nigeria also staged a protest over the cartoon in the commercial city of Lagos on Saturday, no violence was reported.

The Lagos protesters carried placards, some of which read: "Muslims say no to European Union products"; "Freedom of speech has limitation" and "Federal government sever our relationship with Denmark".

Addressing the Lagos protesters, Lagos state governor Bola Tinubu urged them to eschew violence so that they won`t play into the hands of their detractors.

"We should not play into their hands, because any violent reaction will give them victory. This is what they want to achieve," he said.

Commenting on the offensive cartoon, which was first published by a newspaper in Denmark last September, Tinubu, himself a Muslim, said: "We reject the portrayal totally...The publication may be a set up by a group of people against the rest of the world."

Maiduguri recorded the deadliest protest over the cartoon so far in Nigeria, where some protesters had earlier set ablaze the flag of Denmark, where the cartoon was originally published in a local newspaper.

Nigeria`s 130 million people are almost equally divided between Muslims and Christians, even though the country also boasts of a sizable population of animists.

Hundreds of people have been killed in past sectarian violence in Nigeria.

Source : Angola Press