70 dead in clashes in northern Nigeria

Dozens more bodies were recovered Wednesday after violent clashes between security forces and Islamists in northern Nigeria.

BAUCHI, December 30, 2009 (AFP) - Dozens more bodies were recovered Wednesday after violent clashes between security forces and Islamists in northern Nigeria, bringing the death toll to around 70, a count at a hospital morgue showed.

An AFP reporter listed 42 bodies on the floor of the morgue in the city of Bauchi, all with bullet or machete wounds. Another 25 bodies, mostly young people including minors, had been placed in cold storage rooms.

"The bodies were brought in on Monday after the violence," a morgue employee told AFP.

Police late Monday said 38 people died in the fighting, including three members of the security forces.

The clashes erupted Monday between suspected members of a radical Islamist sect and security forces.

The Kala-Kato sect, also known as Maitatsine, has been present in several Muslim-dominated states in northern Nigeria for decades.

It led religious uprisings in 1980 and 1992 which claimed thousands of lives in the northern cities of Kano and Yola.

The number of its followers is not known but estimated to run into several thousands.

Sect leader Badamasi Saleh Alkaleri was among those killed by security forces, the police said.

Police forces across Africa's most populous country have been placed on high alert in the aftermath of the clashes as part of a bid to forestall further violence.

Life was returning to normal Wednesday in Bauchi where the Red Cross was organising burials of the victims. Soldiers and police deployed across the city had withdrawn by early Wednesday.

"So far we have 40 dead bodies and we have secured a warrant from the justice commissioner for the burial," Adamu Abubakar, the head of the Red Cross office in Bauchi told AFP.

"With the heat, these bodies need to be buried quickly as they will decompose rapidly," said the worker at the morgue, where the room was being cooled by a single fan.

Houses, cars and motorcycles were burnt during the clashes.

The Kala-Kato sect abhors modernity, including Western-style education and medicine. It bans television and radio in its members' homes and rejects any literature except the Koran.

A sect with similar inclinations, known as Boko Haram, led an insurection in July. At least 800 people were killed then when security forces crushed the uprising in nearby Borno State. It's name means "Western Education is a Sin" in the local Hausa language.

The fighting in Bauchi began when sect leader Alkaleri delivered a fiery sermon to his followers, calling for the destruction of a breakaway faction, according to Bauchi state police chief Atiku Kafur.

The sect leader had called for the death of his enemies and of anyone who rejected his dogma, prompting residents to call for police help.