At least ten people are feared stabbed or burned to death in Nigeria during a second day of violent demonstrations over a newspaper article suggesting Islam's founding prophet might have chosen a wife from among Miss World beauty contestants.
Protesters set fire to cars and churches, and set up makeshift barricades in the northern city of Kaduna. Witnesses and human rights officials said at least ten people, and probably many more, were killed.
Mr Shehu Sani, an official with the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress, said he saw one young man being stabbed at a major crossroads by men who then forced a tyre filled with petrol around his neck and burned him alive.
Mr Sani said he saw three other bodies elsewhere in the city. Mr Alsa Hassan, the 43-year-old founder of another human rights group Alsa Care, witnessed a commuter being dragged out of his car and beaten to death by protesters. The victim had apparently tried unsuccessfully to drive through the mob.
Other witnesses gave similar reports. State government officials declared a dusk to dawn curfew. Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting "Allah akhbar," or "God be praised," ignited makeshift street barricades made of tyres and rubbish, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city.
Others were heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin." Police and soldiers riding in pick-up trucks fired tear gas at other protesters marching through otherwise abandoned streets waving tree branches and palm fronds.
AFP