Miss World pageant moved

LAGOS, Nigeria -- The regional governor warned rioters would be shot on sight Sunday as hundreds of people fled the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna after four days of religious violence over the Miss World pageant killed 200 people.\nThe violence among Muslims and Christians began after a newspaper article last week said Islam's founding prophet would have chosen a Miss World contestant for a wife. The pageant was then moved to London and the contestants packed their gear and flew to the British capital.\nBy late Saturday, the Nigerian Red Cross counted 215 bodies on the streets and in mortuaries throughout Kaduna, 100 miles north of the capital Abuja, said Emmanuel Ijewere, president of the organization. Previous estimates said 100 people were killed.\nAn unknown number of others killed in the riots were believed to have been buried by family members uncounted, Ijewere told The Associated Press.\nNo new violence was reported Sunday in Kaduna, a Muslim-dominated city with a large Christian minority. Still, hundreds of people recovered what valuables they could from their destroyed homes and fled in cars, buses and on foot.\nThose who stayed attended church services and replenished food stocks at markets, where a few meat and vegetable stalls reopened.\nThe Kaduna governor, Ahmed Makarfi, told state radio that security forces would "shoot on sight" anyone inciting new violence.\nYakubu Ibrahim, 27, returned to find his home in ruins Sunday after taking refuge at a local army barracks for three days.\n"I lost everything except my shirt and my pants. I don't even have shoes," said Ibrahim, whose parents and four siblings were missing after the riots.\nThe fighting began after the Lagos-based ThisDay newspaper published an article on Nov. 16 saying Islam's founding prophet would have approved of the pageant.\n"What would Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them," Isioma Daniel wrote.\nMuslim protesters burned down the paper's office in Kaduna on Wednesday and rioting briefly spread to the capital, Abuja, on Friday before ending a day later.\nMore than 500 people were injured and 4,500 left homeless in Kaduna, Ijewere said. Casualty figures were not immediately available for Abuja.\nThe 80 Miss World contestants arrived in London Sunday on a hastily organized flight from Nigeria. The London show is scheduled for Dec. 7, the same day it had been planned for Nigeria.\nA top Nigerian Islamic leader called on Muslims not to resume fighting. In an interview published Sunday in ThisDay, Lateef Adegbite, secretary-general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, forgave the newspaper.\n"We accept that explanation in good faith, and I call on all Nigerian Muslims to forgive ThisDay newspapers," Adegbite said. "Such a thing should never be done again. And it should be a lesson to others."\nAdegbite said Nigerian Muslims were grateful Miss World had been moved to London.\n"We thought it was wrong," he said, describing the pageant as a "parade of nudity" that is disrespectful of Islam.\nMuch of the violence Friday and Saturday was by Christians retaliating against Muslim neighborhoods, Ijewere said.\n"Some Christians feel especially bitter, because with the exit of Miss World, they have lost a symbolic battle while the Muslims have won," Ijewere said. "Our greatest fear is that it could spread to other cities now"