Christian leaders said 500-600 people were killed in the northern Nigerian city of Kano in two days of rioting this week to avenge the slaying of hundreds of Muslims.
Reverend Andrew Ubah, general secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kano, said he had records of almost 600 killed in three days of riots, many times more than the official police toll of 30. Nigerian authorities routinely underestimate death tolls from religious violence in the belief the true figures could spark reprisal attacks.
"Almost 600 people have been killed and 12 churches burned," Rev Ubah said, adding he was keeping a tally based on information from priests across Nigeria's second-largest city.
Witnesses spoke of gangs of Muslim youths armed with cutlasses and clubs hacking Christians and other outsiders to death in reprisal for the slaying of hundreds of Muslims by Christians in central Nigeria last week.
The violence subsided in many districts tonight although police barred access to suburbs where fighting was still raging. A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been in force since Tuesday and authorities barred media access to hospitals and mortuaries.
Thousands of Christians who fled their homes across the city took refuge in police barracks.
The Kano riot erupted after hundreds of Muslims were killed by Christians in the remote farming town of Yelwa in central Nigeria 10 days ago.
Rival tribes of Christians and Muslims have been fighting tit-for-tat battles for control of the fertile farmland in Plateau state for three months, killing at least 350 people.
But the scale of the conflict escalated last week when heavily armed Christians, who are in a majority in Plateau state, invaded Yelwa. Local Muslim leaders said they buried 630 bodies after the attack.
President Olusegun Obasanjo went to central today to review the crisis. He argued in public with religious leaders in Plateau state when they questioned the government's will to resolve the crisis.