Ahlul Bayt News Agency - Many more Shiite were killed in Kaduna town in the northern Nigeria. Police opened fire Tuesday on unarmed Shiite Muslim protesters in the northern city of Kaduna, leaving three dead Tuesday, the spokesman for Shiites in Nigeria said, as activists accused soldiers of having killed hundreds of Shiites in “a massacre” in a nearby town in recent days.
Spokesman Ibrahim Musa of the Shiite Islamic Movement in Nigeria says 10 people were also wounded and the number of casualties are on raise when police shot “peaceful protesters.” They were demanding the international community condemn the mass killings over the weekend in the ancient Muslim university town of Zaria, and demanding the military release their leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky.
Same protest march was held in Kano in Nigeria but ended peacefully.
The police spokesman in Kaduna did not immediately respond to requests for information.
Musa said soldiers on Monday carried away about 200 bodies from around Zakzaky’s home in Zaria, and hundreds more corpses are in the mortuary. Human rights activists said hundreds upon hundreds, perhaps as many as 1,000, have been killed.
The military raids on Zakzaky’s home and spiritual centres in two other areas in Zaria began hours later.
The military raids on Zakzaky’s home and spiritual centres in two other areas in Zaria began hours later.
Chidi Odinkalu of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission called the attacks “a massacre.” He posted photos on social media showing a bulldozer tearing apart a Shiite shrine and said Zakzaky’s home also was destroyed.
Odinkalu told The Associated Press that Zakzaky suffered four bullet wounds and one of his relatives was killed in raids that began Saturday and ended Monday morning. He was quoting the family doctor.
Two of Zakzaky’s sons also were killed and one was wounded, according to Musa.
Odinkalu and other human rights activists said there are hundreds of bodies at the mortuary of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital on the outskirts of Zaria.
“Citizens must ask, who ordered this carnage?” Odinkalu tweeted.
Odinkalu, the human rights official, tweeted that his friend, UNDP worker Bukhari Mohammed Bello Jega, was killed and “his young wife & child are also missing, presumed dead ...”
Outraged Nigerians took to social media to condemn “trigger-happy troops” and “extrajudicial killings.”
The three areas attacked by the military remained on lockdown Tuesday, with no one allowed to enter or leave. The military also manned roadblocks to prevent more Shiites from entering Zaria, Musa said. He charged wounded people are being denied medical treatment by the blocks.
Nigeria’s military is infamous for its excesses. Nigerian troops are accused of killing thousands of detainees by shooting, torture, starvation and suffocation.
The Shiites two weeks ago suffered a suicide bombing in a procession that killed 22 people. Boko Haram, a Salafist jihadi group, claimed the attack and threatened to “wipe out” the Shiites opposed to its radical vision of Islam.
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