Lagos - Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged Nigerian authorities to prosecute those involved in sectarian clashes that claimed hundreds of lives a year ago in central city of Jos.
"The Nigerian government has not brought a single prosecution or even begun investigations a year after Nigerian policemen and soldiers killed more than 130 civilians in responding to deadly sectarian clashes in the central Nigerian city of Jos," capital of Plateau State, HRW said in a statement.
"The government should investigate and prosecute members of the security forces implicated in these and a series of subsequent abuses," it said in the statement.
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Two days of violence in November last year was triggered by a rumour that the majority-Muslim All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) had lost in a local election to the mainly Christian Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Soldiers and policemen were brought in to restore order following the violence.
State officials put the death toll in the violence at about 200 but other sources have given a toll twice that figure.
The rights body said that 700 people died "as a result of sectarian violence in Jos and excessive use of force by the security forces".
It said that investigative panel set up by the federal government over the bloody unrest was yet to begin work, almost year after.
The report of the Plateau State government panel that probed the violence was yet to be made public, added the US-based HRW. - Sapa-AFP
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