March 10, 2010 | 7:37 am

Muslims massacre Christian in Nigeria

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Living in the comfort of the United States, I scoff when people try to tell me how hard it is being a Christian in our society. It’s not hard. It is if you’re Cassie Bernall, but stories like hers are so rare that such tragedy serves as our only reference for someone standing up for God at the most difficult time at home.

In Iraq, in the West Bank—that’s where it’s difficult to be a Christian. In an American mall when shops are wishing you a happy holiday instead of a merry Christmas—that’s not.

You can also add Nigeria to the list of places that, as a Christian, you’d prefer to not live in. There, over the weekend, Christian villagers were rounded up in nets and then hacked to death by a bunch of pissed off Muslims. From the LAT:

Reports on the death toll differed wildly, with some placing it at about 200 and others reporting 528 killed and thousands injured. Casualty figures in the recurrent Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria’s volatile Plateau state are often difficult to ascertain, as each side inflates its losses.

However, attacks in January and on Sunday have left at least 500 dead, making it the worst violence here for some years.

Hundreds of nomadic Fulani herdsmen launched coordinated attacks on three Christian villages—Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot, just south of Jos—about 3 a.m. Sunday.

The killers planted nets and animal traps outside the huts of the villagers, mainly peasant farmers, fired weapons in the air, then attacked with machetes, according to human rights lawyer Shehu Sani of the nongovernment Civil Rights Congress, who visited the villages and interviewed dozens of survivors.

“People came out of their houses and started falling into the animal traps and mosquito nets and then they were hacked down,” he said. “They were the kind of traps used for wild animals.”

Read the rest here. It’s not clear the origin of this interfaith fighting, but it appears the recent massacre stems from allegations that the Christian villagers attacked the Muslim herdsmen’s camp last month, killing four and stealing 1,200 cattle.