NIGERIAN MUSLIMS kill 12 more Christians, cut out their tongues

MUSLIM attackers killed 12 people in a small Christian village, cutting out most of the victims’ tongues in the latest violence in a region where religious fighting already has killed hundreds this year.

Lagos, Nigeria – The attack almost mirrored the tactics used by those who carried out similar massacres in Christian villages last week when more than 500 people were slaughtered.

MUSLIM Raiders entered the village of Byie around 2 a.m., setting fire to homes and driving frightened residents into waiting attackers’ machete blades, said Mark Lipdo, leader of a regional Christian nonprofit group. Ten adults and two children were slain, he said.

It was unclear why attackers took the victims’ tongues. In Nigeria, Muslim killers sometimes take body parts of their victims for black magic or “juju” rituals, later using them as charms.

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Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly 

Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, in the nation’s “middle belt,” where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

The latest killings add to the tally of thousands who already have perished in Africa’s most populous country in the last decade over religious and political frictions. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people. Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004. More than 300 residents died during a similar uprising in 2008. CBS5