Abuja: More than 500 Christians including six pastors were killed and thousands displaced during the violence that broke out on November 28-29 following local elections here. Around 40 churches have been razed to the ground.

Several Bible League national staff members were trapped in a ministry center in Jos, amid several days of violent riots and protests. The staff members went to God in prayer during the violence, according to Bible League’s Jeff Hale.

Religious leaders from both the Muslim and Christian communities recently met in hopes of bringing peace to the Jos area. What began as outrage regarding suspected vote fraud in local elections quickly hit the religious fault line that quakes from time to time in Jos between Nigeria’s Islamic north and Christian south. Police and troops reportedly killed about 400 rampaging Muslims in an effort to quell the unrest. Islamists shot, slashed or stabbed to death most of more than 100 Christians.

More than 25,000 persons have been displaced in the two days of violence, according to the National Emergency Management Agency. Authorities’ efforts to halt the rampage, including a Muslim assault on a police barracks, accounted for the estimated 400 corpses reportedly deposited in a key mosque.

Christian Aid Mission received word from native missionaries inside of Jos, who said media reports contain skewed information, received directly from the Nigerian government. This information includes false claims that Christians attacked and killed Muslims, and vastly underestimates the damage done to Christian lives and property.

Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, Roman Catholic archbishop of the Jos Archdiocese and Plateau state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said that fanatical Muslims ignited the violence by attacking Christians. “The attacks were carefully planned and executed,” he said. “The questions that bog our minds are: Why were churches and clergy attacked and killed? Why were politicians and political party offices not attacked, if it was a political conflict?”

Plateau Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Edward Pwajok said in a December  9, 2008 statement that 500 people had been arrested in connection with the violence, and that they will appear for trial at the High Court of Justice and Magistrates Courts.