Sources from the Nigerian government said Thursday that clashes between Christian and Muslim tribes early this week have resulted in about 300 deaths, and on the same day Nigerian police dismissed reports that more than 630 people have been killed.

An authoritative source from the government of Plateau state, where the clash broke out Sunday night, said in a telephone interview that not more than 300 had been confirmed dead since the outbreak of the crisis.

The source, who declined to be named, said that the figure of 630 people dead was wrong, and said some hoodlums killed and mass buried their victims, leading people to presume the missing been killed and buried.

But the source also said it's difficult to come up with an exact casualty figure because of the nature of the conflict.

Yet following the presence of more than 4,000 policemen dispatched to the area, aid workers were now finding it easier to operate, the source added.

Reports quoted Nigerian Red Cross sources and Muslim leaders Thursday as saying the clashes starting Sunday between Christian Taroks and Muslim Fulanis in central Nigeria's Yelwa town have killed at least 630 people. But police and Red Cross officials have so far confirmed only 80 deaths, and one of the country's most senior Muslim leaders claimed Wednesday that between 200 and 250 people died in the conflict.

On the same day, Innocent Ilozuoke, police commissioner of Plateau state, also described the 630 figure as "rumors."

"They are inciting the kith and kin of those reported to have been killed to seek revenge," Ilozuoke said in a telephone interview.

"Rumors peddled by the Islamic communities, human right groups and foreign media are to create further tension among the warring factions or to discredit the government for not being able to guarantee the security of lives and property," he said.

Phone calls to the Nigerian Red Cross's headquarters in Lagos were unanswered Thursday.

Though it's not immediately possible to verify the 630 death claim independently, observers have said Nigerian police often play down casualty figures.

Ilozuoke said that 50 suspects had been arrested Thursday, adding, "The police would not fold its arms and watch people take the law into their hands as it has an order to shoot on sight."

The Nigerian government also took measures to calm the situation. A curfew lasting from 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) to 6 a.m. (0500GMT) has been imposed on the hot spot, Michael Botmang, deputy governor of Plateau state said Wednesday. Botmang also ordered security agents to shoot troublemakers on sight.

The Muslim community took measures, too. State governors from Nigeria's 19 Muslim-dominated northern states held talks Wednesday, calling on "all the people of Plateau state to give peace a chance."

One day before, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo directed police "to take all the necessary action" needed to restore order in the town and urged all the parties in the conflict to "sheath their swords and choose the path of peace and dialogue for the resolution of their differences."

However, Nigeria's The Guardian newspaper said Thursday that "fresh hostilities may have broken out yesterday in the Yelwa area of the state, which apparently led to another round of killings."

The newspaper quoted an unspecified source as saying that the policemen sent to the crisis torn area should be responsible for the renewed violence.

Plateau has suffered intermittent clashes between the two rivals of Taroks and Fulanis over fertile land. In September 2001,more than 1,000 people were killed during a week of sectarian violence in Jos. Since then, some 3,000 have been feared killed, about 1,000 of them were said to have died in the first four months this year.

As a multiethnic African country, Nigeria has a growing population of over 130 million, belonging to 373 ethnic groups. Since Obasanjo took office in 1999, ending 15 years of military rule, the world's seventh largest oil exporter has seen frequent eruption of ethnic, religious and political violence that killed more than 10,000 people.

Ethnic fighting has hit oil production in the past, but Yelwa is hundreds of kilometers from any oilfields in the country.

Source: Xinhua