Nigeria election: Red Cross says many fleeing violence

Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes because of post-election violence in Nigeria, the Red Cross says.

Riots broke out in the north after Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, emerged as the winner of the presidential poll.

A civil rights group says the unrest has left more than 200 dead, while hundreds of arrests have been made.

The poll runner-up, General Muhammadu Buhari, has appealed for calm.

Nigeria is divided by rivalry between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south - so much so that the presidency has often rotated between people who come from the two halves of the country, in an attempt to keep the peace.

Umar Marigar of the Red Cross told the BBC on Wednesday that the number of displaced had trebled in the last day - from 16,000 to 48,000, mainly in the north.

But he said that, in the southern state of Anambra, 8,400 people had sought refuge at the Onitsha military barracks because they feared reprisal attacks against northerners.

He added: ''The violent protests turn from political into ethno-religious crisis. As such, people might like to engage in retaliatory attacks. This is what we are always afraid of."

Shehu Sani, head of the Civil Rights Congress, told the AFP news agency: "In the whole region, from reports reaching Civil Rights Congress, the death toll is over 200."

He added that more than 1,000 people had been arrested in the city of Kaduna alone.

The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar says it is calm now in Kaduna city, where streets have been left littered with burnt corpses and rioters burned churches, police stations and homes during two days of disturbances.

There are clashes in other parts of the state and more security forces have been deployed to those areas, he says.

'Irregularities'
Gen Buhari told the Voice of America's Hausa-language radio service that his Congress for Progressive Change party had noticed irregularities in the south and south-east of the country.

"I urge people to calm down and be law-abiding as we are pursuing these irregularities with [the electoral commission] with a view to ensure justice for them," he said.

Mr Jonathan was declared winner of Saturday's presidential poll, with the electoral commission saying he received about 57% of the vote with 22.5 million votes to General Buhari's 12.2 million votes.

International observers have said the election was reasonably free and fair.

Mr Jonathan, a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta, was appointed to the presidency last year upon the death of incumbent Umaru Yar'Adua, a northern Muslim whom he had served as vice-president.

He staked his reputation on the election, repeatedly promising it would be free and fair.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13147831