Bodies litter streets after Nigeria unrest

By Aminu Abubakar (AFP) – 7 hours ago
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Bodies littered the streets here Saturday after Nigerian forces crushed an Islamist sect's uprising two days earlier and controversially gunned down its leader following his capture.
Dozens of armed soldiers and riot police also guarded strategic points in the northern city of Maiduguri, where troops carried out a brutal assault on the base of the self-styled Taliban earlier this week.
On Saturday, authorities searched cars and questioned passers-by in the city, where an AFP reporter saw more than 30 decomposing bodies in three different districts.
The air was pungent behind a Maiduguri hospital, whose morgue, according to hospital sources, was overflowing with corpses.
International Committee of the Red Cross official Halima Bulama said her organisation was concerned about a possible disease outbreak if the decaying corpses were not collected.
"We are really worried about a possible outbreak of diseases like cholera due to the presence of decomposing corpses on the streets of Maiduguri which is constituting a serious health risk," she told AFP.
Government spokesman Usman Chiroma said efforts were underway to pick up the corpses, a task he described as "enormous".
"The government is making efforts to evacuate the dead bodies from the streets of Maiduguri. We have mobilised men and equipment for this job.
"However, it is a an enormous task given the paucity of our human resources," he told AFP.
A grocer in the area, Usman Madi, 35, said: "We pray that authorities either give these decomposing bodies a mass burial or make a public announcement for relations to pick them up for burial."
Security forces this week put down the uprising in four northern states in clashes that killed more than 600 people, according to police and witnesses.
The chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Paul Dike, on a visit to Maiduguri on Friday vowed that "the military will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that no such incidents occur."
"We are up to the task, as we have the capability to crush any breach of Nigerian security," he said after touring Maiduguri, the scene of the worst fighting over the past week.
Security forces' killing of the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf, has been condemned by rights groups.

A senior police officer said the leader of the movement, which is also known as Boko Haram, was killed in a shootout as he tried to escape, but another officer said Yusuf had pleaded for mercy before being gunned down.
Army sources had said he had been seized earlier in a hideout near his house.
Information Minister Dora Akunyili said the shooting of Yusuf had prevented violence from spreading across the country's Muslim north.
"It's the best thing that could have happened to Nigeria," she told AFP.
Amnesty International on Friday condemned "illegal killings" by the security forces as they quelled the uprising and called for an investigation into the killing of Yusuf.
"Anyone responsible for illegal killings should be brought to justice, including officials with chain-of-command responsibility who order or tolerate illegal killings by those under their command," Amnesty said in a statement.
"The use of excessive force by the military when dealing with clashes is a frequent occurrence, often resulting in the death of bystanders," the London-based rights organisation also said.
Nigerian security forces have often been accused of extra-judicial killings and rights violations, charges which authorities in Abuja have always refuted.
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