Kano, Nigeria - Eleven children aged between five and 13 were being held at a juvenile jail in northern Nigeria awaiting trial following sectarian clashes that left 70 people dead last month, police have said.
"As far as we are concerned they are suspects and they will be arraigned before court of law when the on-going judicial strike ends," Bauchi police commissioner Atiku Kafur told AFP in a telephone interview.
He did not give details of the charges they are facing.
The Red Cross said the children were part of 48 displaced when their homes were destroyed during the year-end violence.
Clashes erupted in Bauchi between suspected members of a radical Islamist sect known as Kala-Kato and security forces at the end of December.
At least 70 people were killed, many of them children and minors.
Houses, cars and motorcycles were burnt during the clashes.