http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display ... ement=5157

Upset by damage to mosque under construction, Muslim students spark unrest.

Pastor Umaru Sule's house
Pastor Umaru Sule’s house
BAUCHI, Nigeria, December 13 (Compass Direct News) – Ten persons have been killed and three churches set on fire after Muslim high school students in this northern Nigerian city began a rampage on Tuesday (December 11) that spilled into the city. Today tensions were still high in the area.

An eyewitness at the high school said the Muslim students attacked their Christian peers after unidentified people pulled out two foundation blocks of a high school mosque under construction.

Area Muslims joined the attacking students, resulting in the deaths and damages in the city, including the burning of dozens of homes belonging to Christians.

The identity of nine of the 10 people killed has been kept secret as the Bauchi state government has ordered security agents to remove the corpses and bury them in a common grave. Eyewitnesses told Compass they were buried this morning.

The 10th person killed was a Christian security agent with the State Security Service, identified by eyewitnesses only by his surname, Bogoro, a member of the Church of Christ in Nigeria in Yelwa.

The three churches set aflame in Bauchi after Muslim students began attacking Christian students at the Government Day Secondary School (also known as Baba Tanko Secondary School) in the Yelwa Tudu area of Bauchi are Pentecostal: Elim Church, Redeemed Christian Church of God, and the Assemblies of God Church.

In addition, area Muslims set fire to dozens of houses belonging to Christians. Among the houses burned was that of the Rev. Umaru Sule, associate pastor of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA ) of Yelwa Makaranta, and that of the Rev. Maina Joshua of Kagadama.

A teacher at the Government Day Secondary School-Yelwa, who pleaded that his identity remain undisclosed out of fear of Muslim attack and government penalty, said he witnessed the sparking of the rampage when Muslim students claimed that the foundation of the school mosque had been pulled down.

The teacher told Compass that the Muslim students had won approval to build a mosque at the 3,655-student school on December 2 and began building its foundation the same day.

Elim Church
Elim church
“On December 3, which was a Monday, I was in the school and I heard the Muslim students complaining that unknown persons had pulled out two blocks from the foundation,â€