Corpses have been loaded onto a truck and women have tried to block the smell of decay while fleeing Zonkwa in northern Nigeria, as government officials say next week’s governor elections in two state cannot go ahead because of the violence.
Witnesses said hundreds were killed in Zonkwa alone after Saturday’s election which unleashed waves of killings in communities across Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north after the Christian president won the vote.
Authorities had been reluctant to release a death toll for fear of sparking more fighting, but an Associated Press tour of rural eastern Kaduna state with military leaders on Thursday showed violence far beyond what federal authorities seemed willing to acknowledge.
In a town near Zonkwa, children raised their hands above their heads as a military convoy carrying soldiers passed, fearful of being shot at by the machine guns mounted on the back. One broken cinderblock wall in the area bore a single word in white paint: “War”.
Attahiru Jega, chief of Nigeria’s Independent Election Commission, announced on Thursday that polls could not go ahead as scheduled in Kaduna or in neighbouring Bauchi state because of security concerns, and that the votes in those states would be delayed by two days.