NIGERIA: Scores of people may have been killed in clashes between suspected Christian mobs and Muslims in the north-east Nigerian state of Adamawa, a government spokesman said yesterday.
Police said on Wednesday that seven people were killed in the fighting, adding that mobs had destroyed the central mosque and burned homes and shops in Numan, 50 kilometres north-west of the state capital Yola.
The violence was sparked on Tuesday by sharp disagreements over the rebuilding of a minaret in the riverside town of Numan, a year after the mosque was razed in a similar sectarian bloodbath that killed eight, police and government officials said.
But officials yesterday confirmed the death count was almost certainly higher.
"Many people were killed in the violence. It could add up to scores, but nobody can give an exact figure of the number right now," Adamawa spokesman Mr Willie Zalwalai said by phone from Yola.
He said police had confirmed nine deaths, adding there were reports that several bodies were dumped in the river.
The mayhem was the latest episode in the cycle of violence that has engulfed Africa's most populous country of over 130 million since 15 years of army rule ended there in 1999.
More than 1,000 people have been killed since May in religious and communal clashes in central Plateau state, and in reprisal killings in the mainly Muslim northern city of Kano.
Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in May after the Plateau mayhem.
Mr Zalwalai said though security forces had managed to restore calm, a large number of people had fled the remote town on the banks of Nigeria's second main river Benue, to Yola and other nearby towns, for fear of fresh attacks.
Officials said Adamawa state governor Mr Boni Haruna had imposed a night curfew on Numan, where over 400 troops and police reinforcements have been deployed.
The minaret has been at the centre of a dispute between the town's minority Muslim community and the Bachama tribal chief who argued that the new structure was taller than before.