At least 76 people have been killed as religious violence continues to rage across Nigeria, with Christian and Muslim gangs on the streets in several cities. Rioters armed with machetes and shotguns roamed the streets of the predominately Christian city of Onitsha in the south of the country on Wednesday. There were three more deaths on Wednesday, with residents saying that gangs took to the streets apparently seeking revenge for a Muslim attack on a Christian primary school.The wave of violence began in the northern city of Maiduguri on Saturday after protests against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad spread and 30 churches were razed to the ground. Eighteen people, mostly Christians, were killed. Similar sectarian violence recurred on Monday and Tuesday in the northern city of Bauchi, where Red Cross officials say 25 people were killed when Muslim mobs attacked Christians. In Onitsha, residents and witnesses said two mosques were burned down and least 30 people were killed on Tuesday, most of them northern Muslims. Several local newspapers reported 30 to 35 dead as a result of the violence, apparently a response to the earlier attacks on Christians. Thousands of Muslims, originally from the north of the country, fled to the cityÂ’s military barracks. One Onitsha resident, Isotonu Achor, said: "There are reports that some of the northerners attacked a primary school near the barracks this morning and killed some children".
"Schools have quickly closed and thousands of people carrying machetes, some with guns, are rushing toward the military barracks. It could be bloody," he said.