Nigeria: Military killed hundreds of muslim shiites
Police opened fire Tuesday on unarmed Shiite Muslim protesters in the northern city of Kaduna, leaving three dead, 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.
But police spokesman Zubairu Abdullahi denied any killings and said Shiites tried to attack a police station.
“We only repel the sect who attempted to attack our station,” he said. “We only used tear gas to disperse them. Maybe in the process of dispersing them, they sustained injury, I don’t know.”
Spokesman Ibrahim Musa of the Shiite Islamic Movement in Nigeria said three people were killed and 10 wounded when police shot “peaceful protesters.” They were condemning the mass killings over the weekend and early Monday in the ancient Muslim university town of Zaria, and demanding the military release their leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky.