Up to 100 die in violence sparked by Miss World contest

The Red Cross has reported that up to 100 people have been killed and 500 others seriously injured in rioting across Nigeria sparked by Muslim fury over the Miss World pageant being held in the country next month.

Only last week, the Nigerian Information Minister, Jerry Gana, stood outside the airport serving the capital, Abuja, and proclaimed: "Welcome to God's own country," as the Miss World contestants stepped off their plane.

Little did he know that by yesterday over a hundred people would have been killed as Muslims in the north of the country went on the rampage in an orgy of violence directed against those same beauty queens.

The violence was prompted by an article in the southern, Lagos-based This Day newspaper, suggesting that the Prophet Mohammed might have chosen a wife from among the contestants in the Miss World final, due to be held in Nigeria on 8 December.

By last night, a curfew was in force in the northern city of Kaduna, but it was too early to say whether this measure would be sufficient to soothe the seething hatred.

More than 50 people were stabbed, bludgeoned or burnt to death and 200 were seriously injured in the violence in a number of predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods, the Nigerian Red Cross president, Emmanuel Ijewere, said.

The collision of two worlds – the beauty queens bathed in glamour and glitter and poor African Muslims observing the Ramadan fast in all its modesty – was enough to ensure that the explosion of violence was waiting to happen.

The article – circulated in a state ruled by Sharia law where a clash two years ago between Christians and Muslims left 2,000 people dead in the space of six days – has unleashed more hatred than even the most fundamentalist rant could have hoped to. The author, Isioma Daniel, wrote: "The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring 92 women to Nigeria and ask them to revel in vanity. What would Mohammed think? In all honesty he would probably have chosen a wife from among them."

In the same issue, there were photographs of more than 60 contestants. After a complaint from the Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (the Umma), This Day published a retraction and, yesterday, an apology.

The estimate of the numbers killed is probably on the conservative side. According to reports, Christians and their churches were targeted by young Muslim men who rampaged through the sedate city, shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") and setting fire to tyres and rubbish. Police and soldiers fired teargas from pick-up trucks. The trouble started after the Kaduna office of This Day was burnt down on Wednesday with no loss of life.

Abuja is 125 miles south of Kaduna and is where the Miss World final will be held. It is the biggest international event to be staged in Nigeria since independence in 1960, and its success is vital to President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Baptist, who faces an election next year. But it comes at a time when northern dynasties are putting great pressure on the President.

The north in effect controlled Nigeria after independence until the end of military rule in 1999. Not only is that power now reduced but Mr Obasanjo has become a valued ally of the US. Nigerian "sweet crude" oil suits American refineries and the country's large reserves are convenient for President George Bush's ambition to dismantle the Opec cartel and get oil from non-Arab countries.

* An explosion ripped through the cargo wing of Lagos airport yesterday, killing at least one person and trapping others inside, witnesses said. Lagos is Nigeria's main airport and the busiest in West Africa.