Organizers canceled the Miss World pageant in Nigeria yesterday after about 100 people died in rioting triggered by the contest and a newspaper's reference to the prophet Muhammad.
The event will be held in London on Dec. 7, the same day it had been planned for Nigeria, organizers said.
The decision followed a third day of battles Friday between Muslims and Christians, leaving mosques and churches smoldering and charred bodies in the dusty streets.
Officials said Miss World was moving to London "in the overall interests of Nigeria and the contestants."
The brief statement released shortly after midnight in the capital, Abuja, did not elaborate further on reasons for the change. It was signed by Guy Murray-Bruce, the pageant's top official in Nigeria.
No government officials were immediately available for comment.
The bloodshed was worst in the northern city of Kaduna, where it started Wednesday, but on Friday it spread to Abuja, the capital, where the beauty contest was to be held.
Red Cross officials said about 100 people had been killed and 500 injured in three days.
Fueling the clashes are long-standing hostilities between the various tribes of Muslims and Christians in Africa's most populous nation, where rioting and fighting between the groups is commonplace.
Previous riots in Kaduna have escalated into religious battles that have killed hundreds since civilian government replaced military rule in 1999.
Islamic groups have complained for months that the beauty pageant promotes promiscuity.
The situation worsened after This Day newspaper in Kaduna published an article last Saturday suggesting that Islam's prophet would have approved of the pageant.
"What would Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them," Isioma Daniel wrote.
After Muslims called the article offensive, the newspaper published a brief front-page apology Monday, and a lengthier retraction Thursday that said the passage had run by mistake.
Muslims gathered after prayers outside the national mosque in the usually placid capital 362km northeast of here and then stormed through town, burning cars and assaulting bystanders they believed to be Christian outside plush international hotels.
Police firing tear gas restored calm in Abuja within hours. But the melee in Kaduna, a religiously mixed city of several million people, continued in defiance of a round-the-clock police curfew.
Bands of Muslims, some armed with ceremonial daggers, stabbed and set fire to passers-by.
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