Christian leaders in northern Nigeria said Thursday they were abandoning peace talks with Muslims following a series of church burnings and other attacks in the heavily Islamic north.
Saidu Dogo, an official of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella body representing Nigeria's 60 million Christians, claimed that religious violence had killed more than 1,000 Christians and animists in the northern states of Plateau, Kaduna and Jigawa since Jan. 1.
The violence has entailed persistent back-and-forth Christian-Muslim attacks in the north, as rival mobs attack communities - burning homes, razing places of worship, and killing innocents.
Police have refused to release an overall death toll in the latest northern violence. Authorities in Nigeria customarily play down Muslim-Christian violence in a bid to ease tensions.
Abdulkadir Orire, secretary-general of the Christians' Muslim counterpart, Jamatu'ul Nasir Islam, insisted Thursday that "more Muslims were killed'' than Christians, but declined to provide an estimate.
Dogo, the Christian leader, said Thursday that Christians were pulling out of what had been ongoing talks to try to calm the violence. "There's no basis for peace,'' Dogo said, accusing Muslims of "attacking and killing our members at the least pretext.'' Christian leaders were asking followers to remain ''alert'' but refrain from retaliation against Muslims, Dogo said.
Christians and Muslims started the talks four years ago in Kaduna - a regional melting pot of faiths, in the otherwise predominantly Muslim north. The dialogue, opening in late 2000, was meant to find common ground after a burst of religious violence believed to have claimed several thousand lives.
Orire, the Muslim leader, declined comment on the Christian withdrawal. He urged Nigeria's government to investigate reasons behind growing "distrust'' between Christians and Muslims.
Tensions have risen sharply in recent days in Kaduna state, where police have confirmed at least 13 churches were burned by mobs of unidentified attackers in recent weeks. The attacks include nine churches burned Monday in the town of Makarfi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the state capital. Christian leaders put the number of burned churches at 63.
Sectarian violence also has flared sporadically in north-central Plateau state where armed adherents of Islam and Christianity--both claiming half of Nigeria's 126 million people--have engaged in tit-for-tat violence since a spree of sectarian killings in the state capital
Jos left more than 1,000 dead in September 2001. In February, unidentified militants killed 48 people, including many who had taken shelter in a church. About 30 Muslims have died in the same area, witnesses and police said.
Ethnic, religious, regional and political violence has killed more than 10,000 people since President Olusegun Obasanjo's 1999 election ended more than 15 years of brutal military rule.