At least 11 people have been killed in Funtua, in Nigeria’s Katsina state, after Nigerian security forces tried to prevent Shia Muslims taking part in a procession marking the death of a grandson of Prophet Muhammad.
“Wednesday’s violence confirmed earlier fears that the Nigerian authorities would seek to sabotage the annual commemoration of Ashura in the country,” said the British-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in a Wednesday press release.
“Many fatalities were reported after the Nigerian army and police targeted Shia Muslim supporters of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria’s minority Shia community (IMN) taking part in peaceful annual processions marking the death of a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad,” said IHRC.
Reports also indicate that in Kaduna the authorities hired thugs to find and kill Shia Muslims from IMN, IHRC alleged
A police backed group was reportedly seen heading to the IMN centre in the city of Kano where the family of the late IMN leader Sheikh Muhammad Turi resides.
Turi was killed in December 2015 when the army undertook a massacre of more than 1,000 members of the IMN, alleged IHRC.
“This year’s processions have been preceded by a military build-up that is reminiscent of the run-up to the massacre last December of at least one thousand IMN supporters by the army.”
According to IHRC Nigerian soldiers also attacked the IMN centre in the city of Jos with tear gas and live ammunition.
There has also been a spate of arrests over recent days of IMN supporters in response to Friday’s state-wide ban proscribing membership of the movement.
“As was feared, the new law appears to be being used as an attempt to further weaken the movement whose leader Shaikh Ibrahim Zakzaky remains under arrest. Sheikh Zakzaky was shot in last December’s attack and remains in the custody of Nigeria’s internal security services without charge,” stated the IHRC press release.
The confrontations between Nigeria’s Shia Muslims and Lagos have also been exacerbated by tensions between the minority Shias and the country’s Sunni majority.
The BBC reported on Wednesday that in the northern city of Kano police were forced to rescue more than 100 Shia mourners after other young Nigerian men set upon them.
The IMN, formed in the 1980s. They operate their own schools and hospitals in some northern states and have a have a history of clashes with the security forces, the BBC reported.
The group is backed by Shia-dominated Iran and its members often go there to study.
Sunni jihadist group Boko Haram condemns Shias as heretics who should be killed.
Meanwhile, another eight people were also killed, and at least 15 wounded on Wednesday, in a car bomb attack in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state.
Police said the body of the suspected female bomber was believed among others found on the roadside in Maiduguri, the state capital, Al Jazeera reported.
A spokeswoman from the Nigerian Embassy in Pretoria was out of the office for all of Thursday so the African News Agency (ANA) was unable to obtain comment.
