03 August 2009
Nigerians count cost after uprising by Islamic sect
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Samuel Yunana's father, Fayam, was taken from his home, stabbed in the side of the stomach and told to convert to Islam. When he refused, his throat was slit.
Fayam was among more than 700 people killed in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri during an uprising last week by a radical Islamic sect which wants sharia (Islamic law) imposed across Africa's most populous nation.
Followers of Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sinful," attacked government buildings, police stations, prisons, schools and churches during five days of rioting before soldiers and police put the uprising down.
As a prison warder and a Christian living near the sect leader's compound, Fayam was a particular target.
"He was taken from his house by Boko Haram. They stabbed him and he was losing blood," Yunana told Reuters, pointing to a roundabout in front of a dilapidated railway terminus where his father was dragged.
"They insisted he was to convert to a Muslim. He refused, so on that basis they killed him," he said.
Nigeria is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims, and more than 200 ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side.
Boko Haram treats anybody who does not subscribe to its ideology -- Christian or Muslim -- as an infidel and its views are rejected by the vast majority of the country's Muslim population, sub-Saharan Africa's largest.
Yunana's father lived in State Low Cost, a residential area of single-storey houses on tree-lined streets originally built for civil servants and inhabited by Christians and Muslims.
Its residents had lived alongside Boko Haram followers, distinguishable by their long beards and headscarves, for years. Few realized its members were being trained to wage a campaign of violence.
The sect's leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was shot dead in police detention last Thursday after being captured hiding among sheep and goats in his father-in-law's compound, next to the railway terminus where Yunana's father was killed.
Piles of broken concrete and twisted pieces of metal roof are all that remain of the compound after bulldozers and tanks brought in by the army to contain the uprising demolished it.
Loudspeakers which once adorned the minarets of Yusuf's mosque a few hundred meters away lie in the rubble. The smoldering remains of motorbikes and cars had been torched by soldiers, part of a military show of force meant to demonstrate that the authorities have wiped the sect out once and for all.
HOMES, GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS GUTTED
President Umaru Yar'Adua has said the intelligence agencies had been tracking Boko Haram for years and that the group was procuring arms and learning to make bombs in order to impose its ideology on Nigerians. Continued...
09:23 Posted in NIGERIA | Permalink | Comments (22) | 
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Comments
These people are crazy. Cut in the throat for not converting to ISLAM.. That is absurd.
Posted by: grow taller 4 idiots | 30 August 2009
I agree, and they have the nerve to call us terrorists.
Posted by: Google Fortune | 01 September 2009
In the Islamic religion prohibited killing of civilians, it's really so bad
Posted by: issa | 09 September 2009
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Posted by: online dissertation help | 14 September 2009
This is a terrible incident. I am horrified and cant even imagine how cruel those people are :) Pathetic to live in such a world.
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Posted by: penis enlargement | 19 September 2009
The things you are telling about are cruel and doesn't have any tiny spot of mercy. Things that happen are just not right and they shouldn't happen.
Posted by: Hotels | 27 September 2009
I really pray that God will empower our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa to spread the Holy Spirit and make a positive change in Nigeria, and in throughout the African Continent.
Posted by: Geoff In Pacific Beach | 14 October 2009
Wow. How horrible. I pray that a positive change is coming.
Posted by: foreign online pharmacies | 15 October 2009
They have their own aspects and knowingly disregarding of any religious belief, it is still not appropriate to end one’s life. This is way out any religious sectors would accept. Respect is essential and that’s what we have to practice. Hope the world would find its peace.
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Posted by: Kerja Keras adalah energi kita | 28 October 2009
Though they have different beliefs, it is still unexceptional to end one's life. We are unique individuals with different aspects and culture. Its one person's own decision in making these kinds of choices. But hoping for the better good, this coming to an end.
Posted by: Avoid foreclosure in Las Vegas | 10 November 2009
How sad these things are occurring n some parts of the world. Hopefully people would be able to find their purpose in life. And for what reasons do they have to kill innocent individuals.
Posted by: Short sale Las Vegas Agent | 20 November 2009
Peace is what we all wanted. What could be the possible ways in preventing these things to happen? Sadly, there are just people who don't care about the people they're killing. Such hatred they have.
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This is eye opening news and it saddens me at the same time it enlightens me. Its sad that some people just do not seem to car.
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