Bloody Riots Rage On in Nigeria
Fighting that erupted three days ago during protests by Muslim youths against a "blasphemous" newspaper article on the beauty contest has degenerated into a bloody street war between Muslims and Christians, witnesses said.
As gunfire spread to the city's rundown southern suburbs an AFP journalist was forced to join around a 1,000 terrified residents who fled their homes for refuge in the city's Kronenbourg brewery, which was protected by troops and an armored car.
Stanley Yakubu, a local newspaper reporter, told AFP that he had seen at least 10 bodies -- three of them demonstrators shot dead by police -- in one suburb, Sabon Tasha.
"The police were firing indiscriminately," he said.
Some 4,500 people have been driven from their homes the President of the Nigerian Red Cross, Emmanuel Ijewere told AFP.
"Obviously there have been deaths as well, but it would be irresponsible to put a figure on casualties. We don't want to increase tensions," he said.
On Friday, the Nigerian Red Cross announced that 100 people had already died in fighting, before it spread to the southern suburbs.
More than 2,000 people died in similar riots in 2000.
"Fighting continued until 11:30 PM (2230) GMT in this area on Friday. It started again at 6:30 AM. We hear gunfire permanently," said the plant's French Manager Regis Bouffartigue.
"The soldiers shoot and the demonstrators return fire. According to the soldiers, the demonstrators even have AK47s (assault rifles)," he said.
Miss World's organizers announced early Saturday that they would quit Nigeria and seek to hold the December 7 ceremony, which was scheduled to take place in the Nigerian capital Abuja, in London instead.
The trouble broke out in Kaduna on Wednesday when Muslim youths, incensed by an article on the pageant that they deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed (S), burned down a local newspaper office.
The Nigerian daily this day had suggested, in what was seen as an otherwise inoffensive preview of the pageant, that if the Prophet Mohammed were alive today he might have chosen to take a Miss World contestant as a wife.
The newspaper has repeatedly apologized for its "editorial mistake" -- and both the editor and author of the remarks have been arrested -- but the damage was done.
"This day's blasphemy has made us condemn having Miss World in Nigeria. Since Miss World is the cause of the blasphemy against what Muslims hold sacred, it should be cancelled," said Sa'idu Abdul, 40, a trader from the Kaduna suburb of Kabala Costain.
On Thursday the fighting descended into a brutal rerun of the 2000 sectarian conflict.
As rival Muslim and Christian groups roamed the religiously mixed city, burning homes and murdering in the street troops and police responded with lethal force A statement from the Nigeria's police chief Tafa Balogun said he had "warned those who are bent on fomenting trouble to desist in their own interest or face the wrath of the law".