"It's been quiet since yesterday," spokesman for Kaduna State's governor, Maktar Sirajo, said.

"Many arrests have been made - the people will be brought to court today."

Kaduna's assistant police commissioner for operations Samuel Ogunbayode has confirmed no trouble occurred overnight and around 300 suspected rioters were in custody.

"Right now, things have calmed down considerably," Nigerian Red Cross president Emmanuel Ijewere said.

"Four people died overnight of their injuries, bringing the total to around 220."

He says more than 30,000 people fled their homes during the trouble.

"We have found that more people than we first thought were displaced, we have counted 6,006 families, and there are an average of five people per family," he said.

"We hope that today people will begin to return home, as things are a lot calmer."

Rioting broke out between Kaduna's Muslim and Christian communities on Thursday local time after longstanding tensions were brought to the boil by controversy over the Miss World contest.

A Nigerian daily had dismissed Muslim opposition to the holding of the pageant in Nigeria, joking the Prophet Mohammed would probably have wanted to marry one of the contestants.

Muslim youths attacked the paper's offices, then went on to assault Christian areas.

Christian gangs counter-attacked and three nights of violence gripped the city.

On Saturday local time, amid a storm of negative publicity, Miss World's organisers abandoned plans to hold the pageant's grand finale in Nigeria and moved the December 7 event to London.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo said the newspaper article was directly responsible for the riots.

"Irresponsible journalism in Nigeria bears responsibility - what happened obviously could have happened at any time," he said on the US news network CNN.

But he says he had no regrets about his country's attempt to host the show.

"I am sorry that they had to leave Nigeria," he said.

"They were guests within our gates and we did everything possible to show that we are good hosts and hostesses in Nigeria."

(China Daily November 26, 2002)