Soldiers and members of a Shiite Muslim group clashed in Nigeria's capital Abuja on March 29, 2025, killing six people, police said. One security force member and five members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria died after the group marched in solidarity with Palestinians.
The protest took place on International Quds Day, which is marked on the last Friday of Ramadan. Police said members of the group were armed with firearms, short swords and catapults and that security forces came under intense gunfire after responding to a distress call. Nineteen people were arrested, police spokesperson Josephine Adeh said.
The Islamic Movement of Nigeria disputed that account, saying its members marched peacefully and did nothing to warrant an attack by the army. A spokesperson, Sidi Munir Sokoto, accused security forces of abusing power and targeting innocent civilians. The group has a long history of tense and sometimes violent confrontations with authorities.
The organisation was inspired by the Iranian revolution and has been banned in Nigeria since 2019 after deadly protests and alleged extremist ties. The AP report says its demonstrations often turn violent, and that its leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, was arrested during a 2015 crackdown. Those details help explain why a rally over Gaza in Abuja quickly became a national security incident.
Rights group Amnesty International called for a full, independent investigation, arguing that firearms should never be used to manage demonstrations. The question now is not only who fired first, but how a political and religious procession in the capital turned into a six-death clash in a matter of minutes.
The report does not settle which side carried the first lethal shot. What it does show is a familiar pattern in Nigeria: a protest linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that ended with dead civilians, wounded officers and a new round of accusations between the state and a group under long-standing suspicion.
International Quds Day has long been a flashpoint for the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, which sees the cause as part of a wider anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian agenda. The AP report said the group's demonstrations have often turned violent, especially after the government's 2019 ban and the earlier crackdown that sent leader Ibraheem El-Zakzaky into detention.
That history matters because it explains why both sides were quick to harden their accounts. Police said their officers came under gunfire; the group said it marched peacefully and accused the security forces of killing innocent people. Amnesty International's call for an independent investigation adds a rights dimension, but the immediate fact remains the same: a demonstration in central Abuja ended in six deaths and 19 arrests.
The police version and the group's version are so far apart that the official investigation will matter more than either statement. A march that began in solidarity with Palestinians became a confrontation over whether firearms were present, who fired first and whether the army used more force than necessary. Those unanswered questions give the Abuja clash a significance that goes beyond the six deaths already confirmed.
