Bauchi, Nigeria -- Rioters burned homes, churches and mosques in a central Nigerian town Saturday, when violence flared after Muslims parked their cars in front of a church, a Red Cross official said. Four people were killed and 35 injured.
Adamu Abubakar, head of Bauchi's Red Cross branch, said the clashes followed an argument between Christians and Muslims the previous day.
The army and police had deployed in the part of town where the clashes occurred and the situation had calmed, Abubakar said.
Bauchi lies along a line splitting Nigeria's predominantly Muslim and pastoralist northern population from southern Christian and animist farming communities.
While both groups live peacefully in crowded cities across Nigeria, they intermingle most closely in this fertile, hilly "middle belt," where an intense struggle for resources is under way. Northern herdsmen have historically needed pasture lands for their far-roaming flocks, while agrararian southerners want to grow corn.
Tensions in the region often find an outlet in ethnic and religious violence, which is intertwined with identities related to lifestyles. In November, over 300 people were killed in sectarian clashes in neighboring Jos.