Mosque and government officials have pulled more bodies from wells and sewage pits in a village near the Nigerian city of Jos, victims of what Human Rights Watch said appeared to have been a targeted massacre. Four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes killed hundreds of people in Jos and surrounding communities this week before Vice President Goodluck Jonathan deployed the military to contain the violence.
Muhammad Tanko Shittu, a senior mosque official organising mass burials in Jos, told Reuters on Saturday he had just returned from Kuru Jantar, a village also known as Kuru Karama or Kuru Gada Biu, where more than 200 bodies had been found.
Some estimates have put the death toll at more than 400, although official figures have been much lower. US-based Human Rights Watch said groups of armed men attacked the mostly Muslim population of Kuru Karama on January 19, burning some alive and killing others as they tried to flee.
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