The exact number of casualties in the bloody Saturday to Sunday clash between members of the Shi’a sect and the Nigerian Army has not been determined yet.

The Army claimed that the Shi’a sect, also known as Islmanic Movement of Nigeria attempted to assassinate its Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Burutai as they blocked his convoy in Zaria.

The Army thereupon opened fired on the members of the movement.

According to a statement from the movement, the massacre is still ongoing and members of the movement are still being hunted and killed.

The statement reads: “About a thousand of members of the Movement have been massacred at the moment as counting continues, but the soldiers are now busy evacuating the dead bodies to unknown destination.

“There are hundreds of others that have received various degrees of injuries that are in need of assistance that have currently been denied access by the soldiers on ground who are in a killing spree, shooting anyone identified as a member of the Movement.”

The statement further revealed “The army has also stationed road blocks in Zaria picking out innocent unarmed people that look like members of the Movement and killing them in cold block. Even today they put an army road block in Zaria to Kaduna highway near Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, searching for any member of the Islamic Movement. The most weird of many of such cases is that of an army road block at Dogarawa near Zaria where they killed thirty of our members traveling to Zaria yesterday Sunday.

The movement has accused the army of inciting the public against them as even civilians in other Islamic sects have joined in the massacre.

“The army is deliberately exploiting religious sectarian sentiment to instigate uninformed public, some of whom are now busy killing innocent and unarmed members of the Movement at sight using local weapons.

”The Army is at present dressing corpses of members of the Movement with their military attire and snapping still pictures to probably display them as soldiers killed by the Movement during the attack as a means of propaganda, whereas it was solely an attack by the army on armless citizens.”

Despite still engaging and killing members of the movement, the statement reports the Army are deliberately trying to restructure the happenings through the dissemination of false and untrue pictures trying to cover up the genocide.

“We wish to state here that some of those earlier declared dead through various sources might not have been killed but might be severely injured and in need of assistance.

“Access to health facilities should immediately be allowed to those injured anywhere in Zaria.

“We believe that this incident is planned and executed by the government which has been looking the other way while the army was killing members of the Movement for a period of over 27 hours from Saturday on without any statement and is still quiet as the army continues with its killing spree.”

The IMN, who’s leader, El Zakzaky recently accused the Federal Government of conspiring in a genocide against the members after several of the group’s members died in a bomb blast.

“The Islamic Movement in Nigeria is a peaceful and unarmed Movement with members in every cadre of the society that are entitled to every rights enjoyed by every other Nigerian, including religious rights, whose fundamental rights have been trampled upon by the government in its claim to be fighting against violent extremism, but instead spreading violence and hatred using state machinery.

“Finally, as the Army continues its genocide on members of the Movement, with support of the government, we hereby call on peace lovers and the international community to join us in condemning the act for it is virtually ridiculous to think that the government can kill the millions of members of the Movement”.