MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, (Reuters) – Nigerian authorities collected hundreds of bodies from the streets of the northern city of Maiduguri yesterday following days of clashes with members of a radical Islamic sect.
State government and health ministry officials piled the corpses, some of them swollen after lying in the streets for days, onto open trucks as police and soldiers patrolled.
“As of yesterday we had more than 200 dead bodies,” Aliyu Maikano, northeastern zone disaster management officer for the Nigerian Red Cross, told Reuters, adding that bodies were still being collected.
The toll in Maiduguri brings to at least 300 the total number of people killed in violence that has erupted in several states around northern Nigeria since Sunday. The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram movement wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa’s most populous nation, will bring an end to the six-day uprising by his followers.
Yusuf, 39, was shot dead while in police detention late on Thursday. Officials have said he died in a shoot-out while trying to escape but rights groups have condemned what appeared to have been an execution-style killing.
Hundreds of people gathered to see Yusuf’s corpse, laid on the ground in front of Maiduguri police headquarters alongside the bodies of other presumed Boko Haram members.
“I want to see the body of Mohammed Yusuf to know the man who has caused us so much pain and hardship. May his soul rot in hell,” said one Maiduguri resident, Nasir Abba, in whose neighbourhood some of the heaviest fighting took place.
Eric Guttschuss, Human Rights Watch researcher for Nigeria, described Yusuf’s killing as “a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law”.
Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili told BBC World television: “How he died is a big issue … because Nigeria believes in the rule of law, Nigeria believes that fundamental human rights should be respected. But what is more important is stopping the killing from spreading to other northern states.”
Amnesty International called for an investigation and said those behind illegal killings must be brought to justice.
A Reuters reporter earlier counted 23 bloodied bodies with what appeared to be fresh bullet wounds, among them a former state commissioner for religious affairs believed to be a Boko Haram supporter, Alhaji Buji Fai.
“Alhaji Buji Fai was killed along with other fleeing Boko Haram in an exchange of fire this morning along Benishek-Maiduguri road,” said Isa Azare, spokesman for the police command in Maiduguri.
