JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Thousands have fled Christian-Muslim clashes in which least 70 people were killed in the Nigerian city of Jos, and violence continued on Sunday as soldiers shot those outside despite a night-time curfew.(Read photo caption below)
Smoke billowed from smoldering cars and houses in the gateway suburb of Bukuru, some 12 miles from the middle of the central Nigerian city, where the sectarian clashes erupted on Friday.
Multi-ethnic Nigeria, Africa's most populous state with more than 110 million people, has been plagued by religious and communal violence since independence from Britain in 1960.
Tensions have risen since a 15-year military dictatorship ended in 1999.
A Reuters correspondent driving into Jos under military escort counted five bodies on the roadside in Bukuru. Some appeared to have died earlier on Sunday.
Soldiers enforcing the curfew shot two alleged violators just as journalists pulled up nearby. It was not clear if they had died.
An irate mob gathered at the spot where the two fell and later attacked a passing car carrying soldiers. Nearby troops fired warning shots.
Officials said at least 70 deaths had been reported since Friday and that the situation had been brought under control.
But the number of bodies still in the streets and the scale of devastation even in districts well away from the center, the final death toll looked certain to be much higher.
THOUSANDS FLEE
Thousands of people sought shelter in unprepared police or military barracks, enduring fear, hunger and thirst.
``We have been here since Friday when the riots started,'' said one fugitive at the Plateau state police command headquarters. ``We have eaten only bread today and that was given to us by the commissioner of police.''
He said most refugees still feared to return to their homes in the tin-mining city, better known for its pleasant weather and postcard landscape.
Nigeria's former military ruler Yakubu Gowon flew into Jos on Saturday on a presidential plane to try to broker peace between rival Christians and Muslims, a church source said.
``Gowon immediately went into a meeting with Muslim and Christian leaders...to urge both groups to lay down their arms and seek a peaceful resolution of the crisis,'' the source said.
He did not disclose the outcome of the meeting.
President Olusegun Obasanjo may have enlisted Gowon, an ex-general who ruled Nigeria from 1967 to 1975, to try and obtain a cease-fire in the capital of his home state because he is well respected by Christians and Muslims, the source said.
``There is now relative calm and people are going out to their respective churches to worship,'' one resident said.
The prompt intervention of army and airforce units appeared to have averted the scale of bloodletting witnessed in Christian- Muslim clashes elsewhere in the past.
In February 2000, hundreds of people were killed in an explosion of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law. Hundreds more died in a second bout of bloodletting three months later.
``We learned from the experience of our neighbors to put measures in place. It could have been worse,'' Plateau State Government Secretary Ezekiel Gomos said.
Plateau is in the so-called Middle Belt region of Nigeria, whose inhabitants are mainly Christian or animist minority tribes living alongside a significant Muslim population.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A local resident passes by as a police officer patrols the street in Jos, Nigeria, Sunday Sept. 9, 2001. Scores of people have been killed since Friday after religious tension led to armed fights between Muslims and Christians. Jos, a onetime hill station of Nigeria's former British rulers, exploded into violence over what some residents said was a simple slight _ a Christian woman trying to cross a street where Muslim men were gathered in Friday prayer.(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
- Sep 09 3:21 PM ET