Ten people were killed during a clash between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria earlier this week over the introduction of Islamic law, officials said Saturday.
The ten were confirmed dead following fighting Thursday around the village of Bamba on the road between Gombe and Yola, a spokesman for Gombe State governor Abubakar Hasidu told AFP by telephone.
Several homes were burned and cars were wrecked.
Six people had been arrested and the area was now calm, he said.
Security forces had been drafted to the area Friday, spokesman Elisha Iginla said.
The protests came after a committee set up by the governor proposed holding a meeting to discuss plans to introduce the Islamic law code known as the Sharia in the state.
Christians living in southern Gombe had set up a roadblock on the Gombe-Yola road to prevent the committee from visiting, a resident contacted by telephone said.
The visit had been cancelled but a riot had broken out after Muslims protested the blockade, Iginla said.
The deputy governor of Gombe State, a Christian, had visited the area Friday and reported peace had returned, the official said.
Since Nigeria returned to civilian rule last year, eight northern states have introduced or declared plans to introduce the Islamic law code.
Islam has existed in the north for centuries and the Sharia was widely observed until withdrawn by the arrival of British colonisers in the late 19th century.
Setting out a range of punishments from flogging for drinking alcohol to death by stoning for adultery, the code has been widely welcomed by the majority Muslims in northern Nigeria.
In the first state to introduce the code, Zamfara, one man convicted by an Islamic court of stealing a cow had his hand amputated in March while others have been flogged for offences from drinking to pre-marital sex.
However, the code is opposed by the Christian minority in the north and several states, including Gombe, have large Christian minorities.
More than 1,000 people died in Muslim-Christian clashes in the religiously divided northern city of Kaduna in February, followed by more than 300 deaths there in May.
More than 450 people died in a massacre of northern Muslim Hausas in the southeast in early March, most in the city of Aba.
The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, has said repeatedly it believes that Sharia punishments are unconstitutional but has refused so far to prevent states from carrying them out.
Obasanjo said last year he believed the Sharia issue -- which many believe has the potential to divide Muslim and Christian communities around the country -- would "fizzle out".
The states to have adopted or declared plans for Sharia to date are Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara. Bauchi, Gombe and Kebbi are expected to announce their plans soon -- LAGOS (AFP)
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