Africans Worried About Future Religious Conflict

April 15, 2010

Author: Staff Writer

Source: CBS News

Wire Service: AP

[cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/15/ap/africa/main6397777.shtml]

 

More than a quarter of people in sub-Saharan Africa worry about future conflict along religious lines, though concerns in Rwanda and Nigeria are even higher, according to a new survey on religious attitudes released Thursday.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which conducted the survey, however, found that unemployment, crime and corruption are of greater concern to Africans than future religious conflict.

But the survey found that in Nigeria and Rwanda - countries that have suffered from vicious sectarian conflict - 58 percent in each country fear future bloodshed.

The survey, which involved interviewing 25,000 people in 19 sub-Saharan African countries, found that in many cases fear of religious conflict were tied to fears of ethnic conflict.