Troops move to quell Lagos riots

Residents have been fleeing the violence

Nigerian soldiers are reported to have joined forces with police to help contain a third day of ethnic clashes in the country's commercial capital, Lagos.

The rioting in Mushin district come as Lagos still reels from last month's blast at an army barracks that led to the loss of more than 1,000 lives.

The fighting broke out between rival ethnic groups

Sporadic gunfire could be heard as smoke rose over the area from buildings set on fire by the rioters.

The fighting between members of the Yoruba community and ethnic Hausas began on Saturday night.

Thousands of residents are reported to have fled their homes.

Many of the families moving out are Hausa speakers, from the north of the country, who feel vulnerable in an overwhelmingly Yoruba city, even though they may have been born in Lagos and lived there all their lives.

Clashes

A Lagos University Teaching Hospital spokesman, near the scene of the fighting, told AFP news agency that more bodies were on the streets since fighting resumed early on Monday morning.

"The situation is serious. They are burning houses and fighting," Ayo Olagunju said.

The Red Cross say the death toll from the three days of clashes has risen to 55.

Many houses were burnt down and market stalls destroyed.

Nigeria's civilian government is struggling to keep a lid on ethnic tensions, with thousands having died since the end of military rule some three years ago.

But our correspondent in Lagos says this violence has far more to do with poverty and lack of opportunity, than with animosity between ethnic and religious groups.

Inquiry

Meanwhile, Nigeria's president promised on Sunday that the results of an inquiry would be made public into a series of explosions at an army weapons store in the city of Lagos which left more than 1,000 people dead.

Speaking on live television, President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had been devastated by the loss of life and would not yet rule out any cause of the disaster.

We have to see how we prevent these types of panics in the future

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian President

"It could be negligence, it could be an accident, it could be sabotage, it could be anything," Mr Obasanjo said.

The president said that "when the report of that inquiry is ready, it will be made public," adding, "the military have their ways".

Mr Obasanjo has been criticised for his handling of one of the country's worst disasters and his government's neglect of those made homeless by the devastation.

Decomposing bodies are still being pulled from the canal, where most of the deaths occurred in a horrifying night-time stampede.

The official death toll rose to over 1,000 on Saturday

Two parliamentary inquiries have also been set up to investigate the cause of the blasts, which were reported to have been set off accidentally by a fire.

But a group of human rights lawyers have said they suspect political sabotage.

No deaths were officially recorded at the Ikeja base, but thousands of soldiers have been made homeless and are accusing the government and senior officers of neglect.

The Nigerian Red Cross has suspended operations at the relief camp set up in the aftermath of the disaster, after army officers ordered aid workers to hand over food because they said too much of it was going to civilians.