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Showing posts from August 4, 2009

Warnings of Violence Ignored in Nigeria, Clerics Say

Warnings of Violence Ignored in Nigeria, Clerics Say : "MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Aug. 2 -- Nigerian authorities ignored dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a bloodbath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said. More than 50 Muslim leaders repeatedly called Nigeria's police, local authorities and state security to urge them to take action against Boko Haram sect militants but their pleas were ignored, Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi said. He spoke Saturday to the Associated Press along with several other Muslim scholars in the battle-ravaged city of Maiduguri. 'A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government,' Abdullahi said, drawing nods from other scholars sitting with him in a Maiduguri slum. 'We used to call the government and security agents to say that these people must be stopped from what they are doing because it must bring a lot of tro

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Deadly clashes in South Sudan

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Deadly clashes in South Sudan : "More than 185 people are reported to have been killed in heavily armed clashes between two rival groups in South Sudan, the latest in a series of bloody ethnic clashes. Sudanese officials said on Monday that tribal fighters from the Murle ethnic group attacked a camp in the Akobo area of the region's swampy Jonglei state, where oil exploration is under way, on Sunday morning. 'At least 100 women and children, 50 men and 11 SPLA [soldiers from the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army] are being buried by the riverside this morning,' Goi Jooyul Yol, the Akobo commissioner, said in a statement on Monday. Officials said most of the victims were from the Lou Nuer group, locked in a tribal war with the Murle that has already claimed over 700 lives this year in attacks and counter-attacks. 'We fear there may be more dead to find,' Yol said said from Bor, the capital of Jonglei. 'The situation in