38 killed in attacks on churches, festivities in Nigeria

[Joanne98]

Source: MSNBC

JOS, Nigeria — Explosions in Nigeria's central region killed 32 people on Christmas Eve and six people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast of Africa's most populous nation, officials said on Saturday.

On Friday night, a series of bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations in villages near the central city of Jos, killing at least 32 people while 74 were in a critical condition, the state police commissioner said.

Religious violence has claimed over 500 lives this year in Jos and neighboring towns and villages, but the situation was believed to have calmed down.

Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The blasts happened in central Nigeria, in the nation's "middle belt," where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40806572/ns/world_news-africa/

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And the American Taliban needs to know right now that we are NOT invading Nigeria! Don't even bring it up!

[dogmom2]

1. this has been going on for years.. little to no mention in the media.. >>links>>

http://www.historyofjihad.org/nigeria.html
"snip...How the animistic tribes of Central Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Mauritania and Nigeria fell prey to the Jihadis. And how their struggle continues even today in the conflicts of the Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Eretria, Somalia and between the Arabized Northern Sudanese with the Christian Dinka tribesmen of Southern Sudan and the Muslim but non-Arabized, darker-skinned tribesmen of Darfur who were forcibly converted to Islam late in the 18th century Areadi Gaya, the non-Muslim ruler of Futa Bandu State in West Sudan was forced to embrace Islam after he was defeated by the Mamelukes of Egypt...snip"

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nigerian++jihad&aq=f
this horific long ongoing conflict has been blacked out by the media

[gerenimox]

2. Really? How about the muslims killed by christian crusader pigs in Nigeria?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TymrKm0nZhc

Do we ever hear about these massacres in the christian media?

[alp227]

3. Christian media? Do you count Fox News?

As an atheist I'd best guess that CBN (The 700 Club) or some obscure early Sunday morning program on one of my local stations would be covering events like these. As for that Republican Party arm Fox News, they're too busy covering stores that don't use the word Christmas and making religious hay out of minor incidents at public schools in order to center the issue of Christian persecution in AMERICA. Still these religious disputes are a sad sign about how religion makes people divisive.

[Igel]

5. Yes, we do.

Often with justification provided on the order of, "But this was in response to a Muslim provocation." The trick is to actually read the Xian media often enough to spot the topic when it occurs. (Hint: If you think that the various subgenres of media are randomly and therefore statistically represented on DU, you may want to reconsider your thinking. In the '70s I made a point of trying to understand the USSR/USA ideological conflict by reading Izvestija and Pravda, as well as US newspapers, not just the Russian writings translated for the NYT or the CPUSA publications.)

Trying to justify what would be judged a pogrom in another context isn't a peculiarly Muslim trait.

It is, of course, worth pointing out that hate doesn't discriminate: Islam was spread through conversion by the sword and, more importantly at times, by the prospect of favors, social advancement, and both real and perceived economic benefits (if only avoiding being enslaved, although conversions could be overlooked by slavers and who would know?), as well as by occupation and colonialism writ small. Christianity was spread by conversion by the sword and, more importantly at times, by the prospect of favors, social advancement, and real and perceived economic benefits (with avoiding being enslaved not a real option), as well as by occupation and colonialism, sometimes writ large. More recently without the colonialism, strictly speaking.

Unfortunately, no one religious group has a lock or monopoly on being human.

[AlphaCentauri]

4. Religion and Oil are a bad mix

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2010/12/26/shell-to-investigate-fraud-contract-corruption-bribery-money-laundering-and-organised-crime-inside-the-shell-group-2/