Nigeria: 70 dead in clashes between islamist and police

At least 70 people died in violent clashes between security forces and Islamists in the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi, according to a hospital morgue body count Wednesday.

The clashes erupted Monday between members of a suspected Islamist sect and police and military forces.
An AFP reporter who visited the morgue counted 42 bodies on the floor, all with bullet or machete wounds. Another 25 bodies, mostly young people including many minors, had been placed in cold storage rooms at the morgue.
Three members of the security forces were also killed in the unrest.
The radical Islamic sect Kala-Kato, also known by the name of Maitatsine, has been present in several states in northern Nigeria for decades.
Insurrections by its members in 1980 in the northern city of Kano and in 1992, capital of Adamawa state, also in the north, left thousands of people dead on each occasion.
The number of its followers is not known but estimated to run into several thousand.