Scores die in anti-U.S. protests in northern city

Heavily armed troops were maintaining an uneasy calm in Nigeria's northern city of Kano on Monday after protests by Muslims against U.S. air strikes against Afghanistan resulted in two days of clashes with Christians in which scores died, residents said.

Thousands of protesters had poured onto the streets from mosques after
Friday prayers in northern Nigeria's biggest city, denouncing U.S. air raids on Afghanistan and bearing portraits of Saudi dissident, Osama bin Laden, suspected of being behind the 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The march remained peaceful until a scuffle with a group of Christians resulted in widespread violence. Burnt cars littered the streets on Monday and several burnt buildings were still smouldering. Worst hit by the violence was the Sabon Gari quarters inhabited mostly by Christians and non-Muslims.

Official casualty figures which are placed at 13 deaths are widely considered conservative and intended to prevent further escalation of the crisis. But many residents give much higher tolls for the
dead and injured.

"No less than 150 people must have died, especially on Saturday night when many Christians and southerners living in areas they were outnumbered were attacked while the police was concentrating on Sabon Gari," Johnson Okosun, a resident, told IRIN. "I was lucky to have escaped when my residence in Naibawa area came under attack."

Corpses still litter the streets of the city, while troop reinforcements have been sent in on the orders of President Olusegun Obasanjo, with instructions to shoot rioters at sight. A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed on Kano by the state governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, till further notice.

Thousands of residents who fled their homes are taking refuge at police stations and military barracks. Many more, especially southerners, are fleeing the city in droves.

This has raised fears of imminent reprisal attacks on northern Muslims living in southern Nigeria as has been the pattern with the country’s recent cycle of religious and communal violence.