Anti-Muslim Riot in Nigeria Turns Deadly

The story is too long to repost here, but here is a link (link).

Some parts of the story:


Christian mobs rampaged through a southern Nigerian city Tuesday, burning mosques and killing several people in an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence that followed deadly protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad over the weekend.

First off, this is not Christian behavior. I do not pretend to know what the Christians in Nigeria go through. I do not pretend to understand it on a personal level, but nothing except protecting your own life or the life of another under the most direct circumstances, justifies killing.

"The mosque at the main market has been burnt and I've counted at least six dead bodies on the streets," Izzy Uzor, an Onitsha resident and businessman, told The Associated Press by telephone. "The whole town is in a frenzy and people are running in all directions."

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country of more than 130 million people, is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south. Thousands of people have died in religious violence in Nigeria since 2000.

I'm sure that now there will be even greater reprisals in the Muslim north of the country against the Christians there. This was not the people persecuted rising up. This was the majority in the south taking vengence on the minority after the majority in the north killed the minority there.

And I am sure that the direct violence against Christians in Muslim countries will now increase.

The violence appeared to be in reprisal for anti-Christian violence Saturday in the mostly Muslim northern city of Maiduguri in which thousands of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 18 people.

I pray for the Christians and Muslims in both areas who want peace. I pray for those who were killed in both the north and the south who were only going about their daily tasks. I pray for their families. And I pray for the human family, that we may love each other.