October 5, 2002	Saturday	Rajab 27, 1423

JOS (Nigeria), Oct 4: At least 10 people have died in Nigeria in communal violence sparked by a dispute over missing cattle, police said on Friday.

The clashes broke out in the central state of Plateau, which was rocked last year by riots between Muslims and Christians that killed more than 900 people.

Police said the latest trouble began on Tuesday when a number of cows reported missing from a predominantly Christian and animist district were located in a largely Muslim district.

“Over 10 people died in the crisis... It is difficult to give an exact figure,” Innocent Ilozuoke, the state police commissioner, told reporters after touring the two districts southeast of the state capital Jos.

The violence was now under control but 30 houses, a church and two schools have been razed, Ilozuoke said.

Tensions have been running high between Muslims and Christians in the region since riots ravaged the tin-mining city of Jos in September last year.

The Jos bloodbath was one of a string of clashes that swept Nigeria’s central farming region last year, killing thousands of people. More than 10,000 people have died in ethnic and religious violence since 1999 when 15 years of military rule came to an end.—Reuters