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Death Toll Rises in Nigerian Riots
KANO, Nigeria, Oct 14 (News Agencies) - The official death toll in two days of bloody rioting in the northern Nigerian city of Kano rose to 13 on Sunday, although residents said many more people could have been killed, with some reports claiming the casualties are in the hundreds.
Around 116 other people were injured in the violence in Kano, a hotbed of religious unrest over the past 20 years, following a Muslim rally on Friday against the U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan.
Police said many buildings, including mosques and churches, had been set ablaze during the clashes.
"Thirteen bodies have been recovered, while around 100 people injured have been treated and discharged and 16 other people are still in the hospitals," the state governor's spokesman Ibrahim Ado Gwagwarwa said.
He was speaking after a security meeting chaired by Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, police chiefs and other security agencies, which backed a joint police and army patrol of the city to forestall any new outbreak of violence.
"The situation is now calm," Gwagwarwa said.
State Information Commissioner Nura Mohammed Dankadai said the riots were not religiously motivated, describing it as the work of hoodlums.
"The issue here is about people who wanted to loot and destabilize the peace. They took advantage of the peaceful rally held on Friday to cause chaos," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Earlier, an AFP correspondent covering the riots had reported 11 dead, eight on Saturday and three in fresh violence Sunday morning, although residents said many more could have been killed.
A reporter with the Weekly Trust newspaper told AFP that dozens of corpses were being recovered across the city.
"I cannot be exact on the figure. Between 30 and 40 people may have been killed," he said.
Police and residents said hundreds of non-Muslims have taken refuge in police and army barracks following the riots in two areas of the city.
"Around 100 people are in the police headquarters, while about 300 others are staying in the army barracks," one police officer told AFP.
Houses abandoned by non-Muslims were said to have been looted in fresh violence in the two districts.
One resident, Yussuf Garba, said scores of people fled to the barracks during the violence on Saturday. "They were afraid of being killed, so they ran for their lives," he said.
Another resident, Lebanese trader Imad Falallak, said shops and offices remained shut.
"Nobody wants to take chances. People are not even going to churches. In fact, Kano is like a ghost city," he added.
Police said a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed on the city and that police had been ordered to "shoot troublemakers on sight".
Kano is the largest commercial city in northern Nigeria and has the largest Muslim population in the country.
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