Police fight to disperse Lagos rioters

Police fight to disperse Lagos rioters

LAGOS, Nigeria (Agencies): Paramilitary police fired in the
air on Wednesday to disperse rioters in the main business
district of Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, as ethnic clashes that
have claimed over 100 lives continued to spread.

Witnesses said the attackers appeared to be neighborhood gangs
of unemployed youths known as Area Boys taking advantage of
fighting between the Yoruba-based OPC militia and Muslim Hausa-
Fulani immigrants from northern Nigeria.

Policemen on guard at the Central Bank joined a police patrol
team to shoot in the air to scare away the rioters in the Idumota
area of Lagos.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but shops,
offices and some banks were hurriedly closed. The ever busy Broad
Street was deserted.

One shop owner said: "Some people...were just throwing broken
glasses and bottles to scare away the shop owners."

Authorities said more than 100 people had been killed in three
days of fighting that erupted on Sunday, mainly in shanty towns
ringing the metropolis of over 10 million people. Hundreds of
Hausa-Fulanis have taken refuge in military barracks.

Senior military and police officers met on Wednesday to make
arrangement for joint patrol teams to contain the unrest.

Troops have been drafted in to help overwhelmed police
struggling to stem fighting that has left several areas of the
sprawling city including the port area of Apapa littered with
dead bodies and burnt-out cars and buses.

Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu met leaders of Nigeria's
three main ethnic groups -- the Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba -- on
Tuesday.

The groups signed a peace pact and called for an end to the
violence, but their agreement appeared to have fallen apart.

Further clashes erupted on Wednesday, 40 km (25 miles) away in
the Abule Egba district. Witnesses said one person had been
killed but police could not confirm this.

Lagos police chief Mike Okiro said members of the militant
Odua People's Congress (OPC) had moved into Abule Egba, where
there is a substantial population of Hausa-Fulanis, and fighting
ensued.

He said several people had been injured before police moved in
to dislodge the rioters.

Large numbers of commuters have been left stranded as many
commercial buses are off the road due to a fuel shortage. Fuel
company sources said tanker drivers were refusing to pick up fuel
from depots located in the heart of the battle areas.

The OPC, set up in 1995 as a militant Yoruba organization to
fight for Yoruba interests, is accused by its critics of being
behind a series of violent incidents since then.

The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a
Yoruba, last year threatened an all-out war against the OPC after
blaming it for riots last year in the Ketu district of Lagos in
which more than 100 people, mainly Hausas, died.

But since then, though regular clashes have occurred with the
police, the most prominent OPC leaders have continued to operate
freely and little has been done to curb the group's activities.

Tinubu was Wednesday to meet again with security officials and
community leaders after announcing Tuesday the formation of a
committee to group leaders of all the ethnic groups present in
Lagos.

The state governor said a liaison officer would be appointed
so that the communities could quickly alert the state government
in case of any unrest, he said.

"We should remember, we are one nation in spite of our
cultural diversity," Tinubu said.