Over 50 injured as angry youths attack Muslims in Sapele, Nigeria

SAPELE, Nigeria (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Enraged youths, numbering over 2,000, armed with battleaxes, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons went on rampage, Friday, sacking and inflicting injuries on over 50 Muslims at the Hausa quarters, Sapele in Sapele Local Government Area of Delta State. A northern security guard was shot dead in a separate incident by a gang of armed robbers that attacked a school in Sapele on Thursday. Vanguard gathered that the youths  were incensed by the uninhibited attacks on churches and killing of Christians in the northern part of the country by the anti-Islamic Boko Haram sect. Two of the persons suspected to have carried out the onslaught were, however, arrested by the police in Sapele. There was pandemonium following the  attack on Muslims, who were  ordered to vacate the town in their own interest since Boko Haram members had also issued ultimatum to Christians to leave the north. Secretary of a Muslim Media group in Sapele, Sadiq Oniyesaneyene Musa who spoke to Vanguard on the attacks by Sapele youths said, “We are disturbed by this attack on Muslims in Sapele and the order that all Muslims in Sapele should return to the north. I am a Muslim and an Itsekiri from Delta state, where do they want me to go to, this is my homeland”.  Musa said the youths besieged Muslims in the town very close to the mosque that was bombed, last year, and injured a lot of faithful. “We called the director of the State Security Service, SSS, Asaba and the Area Commander and they responded. The Joint Task Force, JTF, on the Niger-Delta also deployed soldiers to take care of the situation”, he said./129