Hundreds of people have been killed in the central Nigerian city of Jos after Christians and Muslims clashed over the results of a local election, a senior Red Cross official has said.
The official, who asked not to be named, said on Saturday that 218 bodies were lying in the main mosque in Jos, awaiting burial.
Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the mosque, claimed that more than 400 dead bodies were brought to the mosque.
It is also likely that the bodies of Christians killed in the riots were taken elsewhere, making the total number of dead uncertain.
Umaru Yar Adua, the Nigerian president, has ordered troops to be deployed on the streets of the city to contain the violence.
Election dispute
The riots were sparked after electoral workers failed to publicly post results of local elections held on Thursday.
Homes, churches and mosques were burnt down in the rioting fuelled by rumours that the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) had lost the elections to the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP).
The ANPP is considered a predominantly Muslim party, while the PDP is mainly Christian.
The violence is the worst since the May 2007 inauguration of Nigeria’s president, who came to power in a vote that international observers dismissed as not credible.
Few Nigerian elections have been deemed free and fair since independence from Britain in 1960, and military takeovers have periodically interrupted civilian rule.
Jos, the administrative capital of Plateau state, had also been the scene of a week of violence between Christians and Muslims in September 2001, which also left hundreds dead.