Armed mobs went on the rampage in two Nigerian cities in clashes yesterday between Christians and Muslims and a newspaper reported at least 500 people had died in five days of violence.
Clashes which erupted last Friday in the central city of Jos between gangs of Christian and Muslim youths flared again yesterday after a day of calm, health workers and residents said.
"Renewed fighting broke out this morning in the Nassarawa district" of Jos, the acting secretary-general of the Nigerian Red Cross, Mr Abiodun Orebiyi, said. Dead and wounded people had been taken to hospitals suffering from machete and gunshot wounds, he said, declining to give firm figures.
A Nigerian newspaper, the state-run Daily Times, reported yesterday that more than 500 victims of the violence in Jos had been given a mass burial after dark on Monday.
The bodies were taken to the Zaria Road cemetery in three trucks by heavily-armed soldiers and buried under supervision by government officials. The area was cordoned off to prevent news of the toll emerging and sparking reprisals, the paper said.
Officials yesterday declined to comment on the toll - the highest yet advanced for the violence - although the Red Cross confirmed that a "very large" mass burial had taken place.
Meanwhile, the new fighting in Jos continued yesterday. "It is getting bad now in Jos. The Muslims have regrouped and they are fighting," said a Christian resident who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"More houses are getting burned. More people are getting killed," said the man who would give his name only as Oliver.
"Things are getting tough. The tension is very high. Soldiers are patrolling and firing in the air to bring the situation under control," a police official said.
At the same time, violence also erupted in the northern city of Kano where hundreds of Muslim youths attacked two churches overnight and set ablaze the house of a Christian man.
The Holy Trinity Catholic Church and the Overcomers Sanctuary Pentecostal Church in the Shagari Quarters district of Kano were both attacked overnight, the church leaders reported.
A Catholic catechist, Mr Casmir Ogunma, said the church had been razed and the priest's residence set ablaze by youths angered by the events in Jos. Police had cordoned off the area around the church and would not allow reporters to visit.
Pastor Seyi Oluwasola of the Overcomers Sanctuary said a mob of Muslim youths had attacked his church, destroyed instruments and religious books. "If it were not for the intervention of the police the situation would have been worse," he said.
Mr James Enoch, a Christian, said he was leaving the city. "I can't live here any more. These youths are dangerous. They promised to come back and said when they come back nobody will be spared," he said.