Abuja, Nigeria, Mar 8, 2010 / 09:17 am
Early morning raids on three villages near Jos, Nigeria by Muslim shepherds on Sunday morning left hundreds of Christian farmers dead. Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja emphasized on Monday that the source of the unrest is due to socio-economic concerns, not religion.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, the archbishop called the confrontations “the classic conflict between shepherds and farmers.”
It’s estimated that the conflict on Sunday left over 200 people dead. Ethnic Fulani herdsmen attacked three villages of inhabited by members of the Berom ethnicity in the early hours of Sunday morning. The BBC reported that many of the victims were women, children and elderly attacked with machetes.
The three villages are all within 10 miles of the city of Jos, in the central Plateau state of Nigeria. Analysts dubbed Sunday’s conflict a reprisal for another encounter between Christians and Muslims in January that left hundreds dead.