The Vatican has condemned the slaughter of hundreds of Christians in Nigeria in three hours of violence on Sunday. Survivors said killers hacked victims to death after snaring them in animal traps.
Officials said more than 500 people were killed in three Christian villages close to the city of Jos, blamed on members of a mainly Muslim clan known as the Fulani, said an AFP report in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Police detained nearly 100 suspects and newspapers reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape.
Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom clan by chanting 'nage', the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.
Homes and churches were burned, the report said. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Catholic Church felt "sadness and concern" at what he called the "horrible acts of violence".
Archbishop of the Nigerian capital Abuja, John Onaiyekan, told Vatican Radio that the violence was rooted not in religion but in social, economic and tribal differences.
"It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians," he said.
Locals said that the attacks on Sunday were the result of a spiralling feud between the Fulani and the Berom which had been first ignited by a theft of cattle and then further fuelled by deadly reprisals.
A curfew which was imposed after an unrest in January was supposed to be still in place, but Christian leaders said the authorities had done nothing to prevent the bloodshed.
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World recoils as 500 slaughtered in Nigeria attack (Sydney Morning Herald/AFP)