Promoters of the Miss World pageant bowed to Nigerian Muslim anger Friday, moving this year's event in Abuja to London after protest riots killed more than 100 people in the West African country. The organizers issued a statement around midnight, after a third day of rioting in the northern city of Kaduna and an unexplained stampede at the main mosque of Abuja, the nearby national capital where hopeful beauty queens have gathered.

"Miss World Organization and Silver Bird Productions Ltd., organizers of the 2002 Miss World pageant, have decided to move the grand finale to London, England," the statement said.

"This decision was taken after careful consideration of all the issues involved and in the overall interests of Nigeria and the contestants participating in this year's edition."

A spokeswoman said the London pageant would be held on December 7, the date originally scheduled in Nigeria.

The statement made no specific reference to the riots, ignited by an article in a Nigerian newspaper rudely suggesting the Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] would probably have married one of the Miss World beauty queens if he were alive today.

Clashes raged Friday in Kaduna in the mainly Muslim north of the country. Scorched bodies lay in streets, dotted by burned houses and overturned cars. Shops were looted.

The Nigerian Red Cross put the death toll by Friday morning at 105. Witnesses later spoke of more killings by civilians and security forces trying to stop Muslim-Christian clashes.

The Red Cross said 3,000 people had been displaced and hundreds injured.

Two years ago thousands were killed in violence stemming from non-Muslim opposition to plans to introduce Islamic sharia law in Kaduna, one of 36 federal states.

The latest violence erupted Wednesday when outraged Muslims burned the offices of the independent Lagos-based newspaper This Day in Kaduna. The newspaper had published the article and later apologized.

Eyewitnesses said fighting spread from mainly Muslim districts to Christian-dominated areas Friday, despite a 24-hour curfew.

CONTROVERSY OVER PAGEANT

Nigeria won the rights to host this year's pageant after Nigerian Agbani Darego was crowned Miss World 2001 in South Africa, the first black African to win the title. But Nigeria's plans to stage its biggest show-business event ever have been hit by controversy, mainly over the case of Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to death by stoning under Islamic law for bearing a child out of wedlock.

Several contestants threatened to boycott this year's Miss World over the sentencing, but almost all turned up after government assurances that there would be no stoning.

Muslim fundamentalist groups in Nigeria, terming the pageant "a parade of nudity," also threatened to disrupt it. Organizers had to shift the event from November to December to prevent it falling in the Muslim fast of Ramadan.

But both Nigerian officials and the organizers had insisted until the shock announcement that the show would go on.
The 92 Miss World contestants were confined to their hotel in the capital Abuja Friday.

PHOTO CAPTION

Smoke billows from a house set ablaze by rioting in the northern city of Kaduna, Nigeria, November 22, 2002. More than 100 people have died in three days of riots stoked by Muslim fury over the country's staging of next month's Miss World contest. (Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)