LAGOS, Nigeria - Christians and Muslims clashed again in central Nigeria on Wednesday, extending violence that a state newspaper reported had cost at least 500 lives in less than a week, Red Cross officials and residents said.
The fighting in the central city of Jos was the latest bout of religious bloodshed between Christians and Muslims in oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.
"We just received information that fresh fighting broke out in Jos this morning. We have no details yet," Abiodun Orebiyi, acting secretary general of the Nigeria Red Cross, told Reuters.
Residents said they could hear shooting in the streets. One said troops sent to quell the violence had cordoned off parts of the city centre early on Wednesday to prevent the trouble spreading.
"It has been calm since Monday, but fighting broke out this morning around the central business district," the resident told Reuters by phone.
"Trouble started when a group of Muslim youths came out on the streets shouting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest). Then fighting broke out," he added.
Local security officials could not be reached for comment.
State-run national newspaper Daily Times, quoting unnamed sources, said at least 500 bodies had been interred at a mass burial on Monday evening at a cemetery in the area.
Red Cross officials confirmed on Tuesday that at least 165 people had been killed and 928 injured in fighting since last Friday.
But they said they would not release any more casualty figures for fear of fuelling the violence, which began after last Friday's Muslim prayers with a quarrel between Christians and Muslims.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting in Jos, the capital of Plateau State, whose indigenous peoples are mainly Christian or Animist and have long resented the influence of the wealthier Hausa-Fulani Muslims, one of Nigeria's dominant tribes.
Oil-rich Nigeria, with a multi-ethnic population of over 110 million, has for years suffered chronic bouts of ethnic and religious bloodshed.
Violence has increased since the restoration of democratic rule in 1999 after 15 years of military dictatorship. Hundreds of people were killed in early 2000 in an explosion of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law.
07:27 09-12-01
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