JOS: Gunmen killed about 30 people in an early morning raid on two villages in central Nigeria, witnesses said yesterday, in the latest violence to hit the region.
The police in Plateau state, which has been hit by repeated communal violence, confirmed the attack but could not provide details of casualties.
One witness, Rufus Gyang, said the attack happened at about 3am and the gunmen “started shooting sporadically, killing innocent villagers in their sleep”.
Nineteen people were killed in Rajat and 11 in Atakar villages, all in the Riyom local government area of the state, he added.
Auction of Miro works scrapped
LISBON: Christie’s auction house cancelled the sale of 85 paintings by the Catalan Surrealist Joan Miro yesterday after an uproar over whether debt-ridden Portugal, their legal owner, could sell the treasures to buyers abroad. The auctioneers withdrew them from a London sale even though a Lisbon court threw out a suit by opposition lawmakers, prosecutors and the public trying to block the offer saying the government had violated the rules on classifying the artwork. The Miro collection, estimated at more than €35m, came into state hands in 2008 when Portugal nationalised the failed bank BPN that owned them.
AGENCIES
