Six killed in new ethnic clashes in Nigeria

Reports from Nigeria say six people have been burnt to death and several others kidnapped in a new upsurge of ethnic violence in the south western town of Ile Ife.

The police are reported to be patrolling the affected part of the town, where a number of houses have also been burnt.

A BBC correspondent in Nigeria says there is no clear explanation for what sparked the clashes this time between the Ife and Modakeke groups.

But she says tension between the two communities goes back more than a century.

A dispute earlier this year over the control of local government sparked a new bout of violence that left scores of people dead and destroyed many houses.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service