Relative calm in Kaduna

A sense of normality is gradually returning to Kaduna after three days of religious clashes between Muslims and Christians over the proposed introduction of Sharia law. "The situation has improved and despite the curfew some people have started returning to their homes," Fabian Okoye of Human Rights Monitor told IRIN on Thursday. Muslims are fleeing predominantly-Christian areas while Christians are leaving mainly-Muslim areas, the BBC reported. Meanwhile, the 24-hour curfew, imposed on Wednesday, has now been eased to between 04:00 pm (15:00 GMT) and 07:00 am (16:00 GMT), the authorities announced on Thursday. Shops, markets and offices are beginning to open and some people, especially those who took refuge in army and police barracks where resources are "overstretched", are now venturing out to get food for others, Okoye said. The House of Representatives said it had set up a fact-finding committee to visit Kaduna on 29 February, state television reported on Wednesday. It strongly condemned the religious clashes in Kaduna as "barbaric" and called on the federal government to assist the state authorities in restoring peace to the city. Representative Binta Koji told the House that over 100 people had died since violence broke out on Monday while Okoye told IRIN that "not less than 300 have died in the disturbances." Corpses of Muslims are left to rot in the streets in Christian areas, similarly Christians are left unburied in Muslim areas of Kaduna, the BBC reported on Thursday. Meanwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo, in an address to the nation on Wednesday, said that the horrors of Kaduna had achieved nothing. "If Nigeria is to tread the power of greatness, it cannot be along the line of religious violence and bigotry. It must be along the path of constitutionality, democracy, the rule of law, and mutual respect for each other in all aspects of our life," Radio Nigeria-Lagos reported him as saying.