Lagos violence death toll mounts

LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) -- At least 100 people have been killed and more than 400 injured in four days of ethnic fighting in Lagos, the Nigerian Red Cross said.

CNN's Jeff Koinange reported a large military convoy had arrived in Lagos and were fanning out across the battle-scarred city.

Earlier in the day, he said, the police presence was described as largely non-existent as marauding gangs roamed the streets of the working-class suburb in the midst of ethnic clashes.

About 100 heavily armed members of Nigeria's army arrived in Lagos on Tuesday afternoon, as a senior military officer tried to persuade residents to return home.

Soldiers ordered residents of the northern suburbs of Mushin and Idi Araba -- where fighting between Yoruba and Hausa tribal militants began on Saturday -- to walk through the battle-torn streets with their hands above their head as a precaution.

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Some people were ordered to lie on the ground while soldiers searched them for weapons.

Residents were still fleeing the area, saying they were afraid the security forces would soon leave despite widespread fears of a resurgence of fighting after nightfall.

Others, however, were nervously venturing back to collect whatever belongings were left in their looted, burned homes.

One woman, who gave her name to the Associated Press only as Bimbola, found nothing of value in her small house, where the roof was caved in and furniture torched beyond recognition. But she was thankful no one in her family was harmed during the fighting.

"If there's life, there's hope," she said.

Hundreds of people -- mostly Hausa women, children and elderly men -- had sought refuge at the Abalti army barracks, near Idi Araba, and the Ikeja police college, farther away.

The ethnic Yoruba governor of Lagos state appeared on national television alongside Hausa governors of several northern states to appeal to fighters in their respective languages to lay down their weapons.

"We are one nation, one people, under one God," Governor Bola Tinubu said.

There are long-standing hostilities between the mainly Muslim Hausas from the north of the country and the Yorubas, most of whom are Christians from the southwest. Koinange reported that many Lagos residents welcomed the military presence, despite strained relations after the January 27 army munitions plant explosion that left at least 1,000 dead.

He said the army was perceived as able to restore order rather than the police who last week abandoned their posts in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Koinange said that in the mainly Hausa Muslim north there are Christian enclaves and there were fears of retaliatory attacks there for what had happened in Lagos.

Five trucks of soldiers were stationed at key positions in the highly volatile mostly Muslim city of Kano, where hundreds died last year in ethnic rioting.

Police said they had also reinforced Jigawa state, which borders Kano.

"We've been going to the villages telling people they should not see the clashes in Lagos as an attack on Hausas by any particular tribe, but the activities of hoodlums," said the police chief in Jigawa State, Shehu Adedayo Adeoye.

The sight of soldiers on the streets has become routine in Nigeria after ethnic disturbances which have killed thousands since President Oluesgun Obasanjo took office in 1999.

The violence started on Saturday after Hausas claimed a young Yoruba man desecrated a mosque.

Hausas apparently turned on him and beat him to death. Yorubas saw this and retaliated.