More than 200 people have been killed in two days of religious clashes in the northern Nigerian city of Kano triggered by protests against U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan, residents said Sunday.
Most of the killings took place overnight as rival Muslim and Christian gangs rampaged in heavily populated districts on the outskirts of town despite a night curfew and orders to police to shoot protesters on sight.
One of the worst hit areas was Zangon district outside the city center, a Muslim stronghold with a significant Christian minority. Those fleeing were Christians.
``People were slaughtered in Zangon. There cannot be less than 200 killed last night,'' said one of many residents ferried in buses under military escort to Sabon Gari where most non-Muslim immigrants live.
``As I speak with you now I can see a body burning in the street,'' said a Sabon Gari resident speaking by telephone. ``He appears to be a Muslim who strayed into Sabon Gari.''
More killings were reported in the Brigade district adjoining Sabon Gari.
Officials have so far only spoken of ``many killed'' and have not issued any definitive figure on those killed.
Religious riots over the past two years has claimed hundreds of lives. Nigerian authorities are always keen to play down death figures so as not to provoke an escalation in clashes.
``People are stranded. People are trapped in various locations,'' said another resident who spent the night holed up in a city office.
Hard pressed security forces used civilian buses to rush what were reported to be hundreds of injured to hospitals.
Heavily armed soldiers guarded the few churches which held Sunday services, witnesses said. Streets of northern Nigeria's commercial nerve center were deserted.
MILITARY REINFORCEMENTS POUR IN
The federal government of President Olusegun Obasanjo sent reinforcements of soldiers and police to the city from neighboring states.
Tanks and armored cars patrolled the streets as night fell Saturday. Police banned all vehicles from the streets on the second day of protests against U.S. action against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban for refusing to surrender Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
The United States has named bin Laden as prime suspect behind suicide attacks on the United States last month.
Obasanjo's two-year-old civilian government, which took over from military rulers, has been struggling with a spate of religious violence in the predominantly Muslim north.
Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with over 110 million people divided almost evenly between Muslims and Christians.
Analysts say the upsurge of sectarian violence followed the introduction of strict Islamic sharia penal code by some northern states, despite protests by non-Muslims.
The clashes in Kano are potentially the most dangerous for oil-producing Nigeria as Kano is the biggest urban center in northern Nigeria and a hotbed of Islamic radicalism.
Kano police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba Saturday issued the order to shoot on sight rioters and other troublemakers.
The protests, which began after Friday prayers, were intended to be peaceful, but local residents said they were hijacked by hoodlums from the city's army of unemployed youth.