The sound of machinegun fire echoed round the central Nigerian city of Jos on Saturday as the army tried to prevent new clashes between religious and ethnic gangs after fighting that has killed at least 20 people.
Authorities imposed a night-time curfew on the capital of the central Plateau state on Friday and soldiers deployed on the streets after rival gangs burned churches and mosques, injuring more than 300 people and forcing thousands from their homes.
Despite the curfew, attacks continued overnight in parts of the city, which lies at the crossroads between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
“There is machinegun fire and there are occasional heavy booms. There is smoke everywhere,” said one resident in a neighbourhood on the edge of the unrest, asking not to be named.
“There are Hausas and Beroms who want to fight each other and the army is in the middle trying to create a buffer zone. The intensity is worse than yesterday,” he said.
A Reuters witness said people were running to seek refuge early on Saturday close to a mosque which had come under attack.
The unrest is the most serious of its kind in Africa’s most populous nation, roughly equally split between Christians and Muslims, since President Umaru Yar’Adua took power in May 2007.
The Red Cross said on Friday that at least 20 people had been killed and more than 300 injured. The clashes between gangs of Muslim Hausas and mostly Christian Beroms was triggered by a disputed local election.