Sectarian violence worsens in Nigeria

? Muslim mobs brandishing machetes and clubs attacked Christians in the streets of Kano on Wednesday as security forces struggled to quell a two-day rampage to avenge a massacre of hundreds of Nigerian Muslims.

Police confirmed at least 30 killed in strife engulfing this northern city, where thousands, mostly minority Christians, cowered in army barracks and police stations as mobs attacked victims outside. Authorities ordered police to shoot rioters on sight.

The rampage exploded Tuesday following a demonstration by thousands of Muslims protesting the slaying of up to 600 Muslims by a predominantly Christian ethnic group last week in the central Nigeria town Yelwa.

The latest rioting threatened to send violence spiraling further. In an apparent response to Muslim attacks, a group of young Christians in one Kano neighborhood fired shotguns Wednesday at groups of Muslim men.

“The Kano situation is an unfortunate development and just a reverberation of what happened in Yelwa,” said Remi Oyo, spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Obasanjo’s 1999 election ushered in a brittle civilian government after 15 years of oppressive military rule and unleashed long-simmering ethnic and religious tensions.