BAUCHI, Nigeria— At least 4,500 people have been displaced by sectarian violence in the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi which left 11 dead and 100 hospitalised, police said Tuesday.
"About 4,500 people have been displaced and they have been camped at two army barracks in the city", Bauchi police commissioner Adanaya Tallman Gaya told AFP after rioting between Muslims and Christians began on Saturday.
"We have recorded 11 deaths and 100 casualties in the two-day violence and our men have succeeded in making 30 arrests in connection with the disturbance", Gaya said.
The city was calm but tense on Tuesday. Troops were deployed there and seven neighbourhoods affected by the violence were under dusk-to-dawn curfew.
"The curfew is still in force, it will only be lifted when normalcy is fully restored and anybody who defies it will certainly be apprehended and prosecuted", Gaya said.
Over 200 houses, six churches and three mosques were torched, according to Bauchi Red Cross secretary Adamu Abubakar.
"We have been providing food items to the displaced but our tent supplies have been exhausted and many of the displaced sleep in the open," Abubakar said at the Shadawanka barracks where 3,000 people were sheltered.
"I'm still apprehensive and afraid to go back to my house because the situation is still tense and I can't risk my life and that of my family," said Yohanna Moses who fled to the barracks from his home.
Muslim youths went on a rampage Saturday, attacking Christians and burning churches. They said their acts were reprisals for the burning of two mosques overnight in the state capital Bauchi.
Tensions have risen in Bauchi, a city of four million, since February 13 when Pentecostal Christians barricaded a pathway used by Muslims attending Friday prayers at a nearby mosque, residents said.
Bauchi suffered bloody sectarian strife in 2004 when Muslim-Christian violence in the town of Tafawa Balewa, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) away, spilled over to the city, and houses, mosques and churches were burnt.
"About 4,500 people have been displaced and they have been camped at two army barracks in the city", Bauchi police commissioner Adanaya Tallman Gaya told AFP after rioting between Muslims and Christians began on Saturday.
"We have recorded 11 deaths and 100 casualties in the two-day violence and our men have succeeded in making 30 arrests in connection with the disturbance", Gaya said.
The city was calm but tense on Tuesday. Troops were deployed there and seven neighbourhoods affected by the violence were under dusk-to-dawn curfew.
"The curfew is still in force, it will only be lifted when normalcy is fully restored and anybody who defies it will certainly be apprehended and prosecuted", Gaya said.
Over 200 houses, six churches and three mosques were torched, according to Bauchi Red Cross secretary Adamu Abubakar.
"We have been providing food items to the displaced but our tent supplies have been exhausted and many of the displaced sleep in the open," Abubakar said at the Shadawanka barracks where 3,000 people were sheltered.
"I'm still apprehensive and afraid to go back to my house because the situation is still tense and I can't risk my life and that of my family," said Yohanna Moses who fled to the barracks from his home.
Muslim youths went on a rampage Saturday, attacking Christians and burning churches. They said their acts were reprisals for the burning of two mosques overnight in the state capital Bauchi.
Tensions have risen in Bauchi, a city of four million, since February 13 when Pentecostal Christians barricaded a pathway used by Muslims attending Friday prayers at a nearby mosque, residents said.
Bauchi suffered bloody sectarian strife in 2004 when Muslim-Christian violence in the town of Tafawa Balewa, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) away, spilled over to the city, and houses, mosques and churches were burnt.
