JOS, Nigeria, Dec 1, 2008 (AFP) – Two thousand angry youths stormed a mosque in the riot-torn city of Jos as a top parliament official appealed for an end to religious troubles that have left hundreds dead, witnesses said.Thousands of troops and police patrolled the streets of the central city Monday after the clashes between rival Christians and Muslims however and a relative calm led to an easing of a curfew.
Youths entered the main mosque as the speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, made an appeal to Muslim leaders for calm.
The youths shouted for the removal of Plateau state governor Jonah Jang and his government before they left after an intervention by Muslim leaders and the mosque was coordonned off.
"You must put your anger in your pockets," Bankole told them. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) also called for calm and restraint in city. OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed "deep regret" over the clashes and "appealed to Nigerians to shun violence and embrace dialogue, tolerance and the rule of law as means of resolving disputes." Thousands of troops patrolled the streets, many of them sent as reinforcements on Sunday and Monday, and searched passers-by. But a 24-hour curfew in four districts of Jos that saw the worst of the fighting has been replaced with a night-time curfew applied to the city as a whole, Plateau State information commissioner Nuhu Gagara told AFP.
"The situation has improved in the state capital," he said, adding that the curfew might be further relaxed Tuesday. The state government has said about 200 people died in the continue.....................
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