Maiduguri, Nigeria (Reuters) – The president of Nigeria, Umaru Yar #39; Adua said on Tuesday that security forces would pursue the remnants of a radical Muslim sect responsible for the crashes that killed at least 150 people and thousands were displaced.
Followers of a radical Islamic speaker armed with machetes, knives, bows and arrows, hunting rifles and homemade explosives attacked churches, police stations, prisons and buildings government in parts of the mostly Muslim north of the country in recent days.
The violence began in the state of Bauchi on Sunday after the arrest of some members of the group Boko Haram, which opposes Western education and to demand the adoption of Islamic law throughout Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.
Then it spread to the states of Kano, Yobe and Borno, where capital Maiduguri live group leader, Mohammed Yusuf.
The situation has been contained in Bauchi and Yobe. The bad situation we have now is in Borno where the leader of the group is staying (. ..) We will launch an operation to remove a large operation, said Yar #39; Adua to journalists after a meeting with security chiefs and state governors.
Our agencies certainly have been following for years and I think that this operation is an operation that will once and forever (…) I assure you that the situation has been controlled, he said before leaving for Brazil for a visit of three days.
He Yusuf Islam was opposed to Western education and, as its critics, has led some students and young illiterate and unemployed to take rhetoric against #39; establishment #39;.
Isa Azar, spokesman for the police command in Maiduguri, said that 90 people participated in the riots, as well as eight police officers, three prison officers and two soldiers had been killed in clashes with security forces, causing the displacement of hundreds of families.
Residents said a large number of bodies were piled into trucks by police.
When we heard gunfire and saw people running, we take our family and we join them, said Sunny Nwankwo, a journalist who fled to one of two barracks of the city that provide shelter for thousands of civilians.
More than 50 people died by violence in Bauchi on Sunday and were reported killed in Kano and Yobe.
ILLEGAL EDUCATION
The four northern states are among the 12 who began a strict application of sharia in 2000, a decision that has alienated Christian minorities and caused waves of sectarian violence that left thousands dead.
We do not believe in western education. corrupts our ideas and beliefs. That is why standing up to defend our religion, he explained to Reuters on Monday Abdulmuni Mohammed Ibrahim, one of the top leaders of the group after their arrest in the state of Kano.
Boko Haram means education illegal.
Locals say the Yusuf views are not shared by the vast majority of Muslim leaders in Nigeria or its followers.
I want to emphasize that this is not an interfaith crisis, said Yar #39; Adua.
More than 200 ethnic groups generally live in peace in the country of West Africa, although a civil war left a million dead between 1967 and 1970 and there have been outbreaks of religious violence since then.
(Additional Reporting by Mike Oboh in Kano and Bauchi in HAZZA Ardo Felix Onuah in Abuja; written by Nick Tattersall; Edited by Hernan Garcia in Spanish and Patricia Avila)
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