March 9, 2010
By Ruth Gledhill
Thousands have been killed in religious clashes in Nigeria. In a recent article in Christianity Today, Archbishop of Jos, Ben Kwashi, described the confrontations as coming 'face to face with Satan.'
Yesterday I interviewed Archbishop Kwashi by telephone for our report in today's Times. He said he began to hear about the massacres as he was conducting a confirmation service. A messenger from one of the three predominantly Christian villages attacked ran to the church where he was celebrating, to show him photographs of the massacres on their digital cameras.
As the day went on, he heard about the two others. He went to one of the villages to look for himself but decided to stay on the boundaries and not get too close as he could not cope with the stench and the terrible wounds he saw on babies and children in particular.
He believes the Muslim occupants of the villages were tipped off as they all left before the massacres, he reported. Also, he believes a significant organisation was behind the killings because they happened during curfew with the army in the area, as it has been since the January killings.
Nearly all the photographs received at The Times have dead children in them. They are too distressing for publication here.
The Archbishop said: 'It was not a good sight at all. The villagers had no chance whatsoever. They were slaughtered. I could see machete wounds in the necks of children. Kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying. Some have lost their voices. I could not stand it. From what I saw from a distance, it was over 100 killed in one village. I don’t know what sparked it off. I thought we were making headway after the previous crisis in January. . .
Read the entire article here.
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