100 killed in Miss World riots

More than 100 people have been bludgeoned or burned to death in violent demonstrations against the Miss World contest in Nigeria.

Commuters were dragged out of cars and set alight by mobs of Muslim extremists shouting "Miss World is sin".

Protesters set fire to buildings and churches in the northern city of Kaduna. Five hundred people have been injured.

The riots are the latest episode in the long-running row over human rights abuses in Nigeria, host nation of the contest next month.

The fighting was sparked by a newspaper article which suggested Islam's founding prophet Mohammed might have chosen a wife from a beauty contest.

Burning tyres filled the streets with thick black smoke as youths looted shops, schools and offices, destroying everything in their path.

Onlookers said more than 10 Christian churches were destroyed and cars overturned as the mobs ran amok in the streets.

Shehu Sani, of the Kadunabased Civil Rights Congress, said he watched a mob stab one man before forcing a tyre filled with petrol around his neck, setting it alight and watching him burn alive as youths chanted "Down with beauty".

Another bystander said he saw a man dragged out of his car and beaten to death.

Hundreds of soldiers were deployed onto the streets and a 24-hour curfew imposed.

The government has appealed for calm but fears the extremists will be back on the still-smoking streets today, and the city remains on heightened alert. Rioting began on Wednesday, when protesters set fire to the office of the newspaper This Day after it published the article about the beauty pageant, which many devout Muslims believe promotes promiscuity and indecency.

Isioma Daniel wrote: "What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them [the contestants]."

The paper published a frontpage apology yesterday, saying it printed the offending lines by mistake.

Miss World officials dismissed the bloodbath as "unfortunate", and appealed for calm, insisting the contest would go ahead on 7 December.

Its national director, Guy Murray, said: "It is unfortunate. All we can say to our fellow Muslims is that we should try to live together in one community, and that the Miss World contest is here for a good cause.

"It is only here to promote the country and improve the economy, and raise funds for the less privileged children around the world."

A boycott of the competition began after Nigerian woman Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock as a result of rape.