The death toll from two days of Muslim-Christian clashes in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna is over 300, the representative of an inter-religious group said yesterday.
"There are silent killings still going on, making the actual death toll difficult," said Mr James Wuye, national co-ordinator for the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum. "But information from Christian and Muslim brothers give a death toll of 300."
The toll is the highest since killings in Kaduna in February when more than 1,000 people died in several days of riots in the city.
In the most recent riots more than 1,000 buildings have been burned, including churches and mosques, reports said.
In Kaduna yesterday, heavily armed troops patrolled the streets and few people ventured out of their homes. Several corpses could be seen on the streets, but residents said most had been cleared and taken for burial or to hospital morgues.
Authorities have been at pains to play down religion as a motive for the violence but residents said the gangs were clearly organised on Christian-Muslim lines.
Many Christian immigrants, notably south-eastern Ibos, were trying to flee the city as they did in February.
The February unrest was triggered by Christian fears that Kaduna state was planning to introduce a strict Islamic sharia penal code, one of the issues fanning an upsurge in ethnic and religious violence since President Olusegun Obasanjo's government took over a year ago after 15 years of military rule.
The latest violence was triggered by the discovery of the body of a Christian on Monday in the southern Kaduna city district of Narayi.
Clashes erupted between residents of Narayi and the largely Muslim neighbouring community of Barnawa and quickly spread to other suburbs. "It appears that people who suffered losses in the February fighting are taking advantage of the current unrest to carry out revenge attacks," one resident said.
"About 50 bodies were brought here alone and many more deposited at the general hospital," said a member of staff of an army hospital in Kaduna.
Among the dead was a member of the lower chamber House of Representatives, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi, who was reported to have been killed on Tuesday afternoon by rioters who mounted a roadblock on the Kaduna-Abuja expressway.
Police reported many arrests yesterday, among them five people they said had been found wearing fake army uniforms and shooting at Christians and burning their homes in the Nasarawa district.
The Kaduna police chief, Mr Mohammed Shehu, warned members of the public yesterday to turn in illegal and unlicensed firearms or face prosecution.
"The [police] command will soon embark on house-to-house searches to recover illegal firearms and anybody found with such firearms will not only face prosecution but will be treated as an armed robber," Mr Shehu said.
A government statement on Tuesday night announcing a curfew said authorities were in control of the situation.
Residents said the city centre remained largely calm yesterday but banks, shops and city markets and other businesses stayed shut.
Nigeria's Christian President, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, and his Muslim deputy, Mr Atiku Abubakar, are to work together with leaders in Kaduna to restore "real peace", the government said yesterday.
The Nigerian Information Minister, Mr Jerry Gana, said the government was "profoundly touched by these sad events and took the very important decision that the President and Vice-President should liaise effectively with the governor of Kaduna state . . . so that genuine peace can return to Kaduna".