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15 killed in Nigerian cartoon protests

Armed mob rampages though streets, burns down 15 churches

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria): Police and soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of this northern Nigerian town on Sunday, one day after thousands of Nigerian Muslims, protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed, attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 15 persons.

Most residents stayed at home amid a tense calm, fearful of a repeat of the previous day's violence — the first major protest to erupt over the issue in Africa's most populous nation.

On Saturday, rioters burned down 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order. Security forces arrested dozens of people suspected of taking part in the violence.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city centre with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tyre around one man, poured petrol on him and set him ablaze.

Chima Ezeoke, a Christian resident, said the protesters attacked and looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins in the country's south.

``Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters,'' Mr. Ezeoke said.

Witnesses said three children and a Catholic priest were among those killed.

Mutual suspicions between Christians and Muslims often break out into sectarian violence in Nigeria.

Thousands of people have died in this West African country since 2000 in religious violence fuelled by the adoption of the strict Islamic or Shariah legal code by a dozen States in the north, seen by most Christians as a move to impose religious hegemony on non-Muslims. — AP

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