Yelwa (Nigeria): At least 630 people were killed in an attack on a Nigerian Muslim community by a Christian ethnic militia, local people and a senior Red Cross official said today (May 6, 2004) at the site of a mass grave.

"The figure is correct. All the bodies were gathered at the traditional leader's house and then were buried behind it," Umar Abdu Mamairiga, the Nigerian Red Cross's national disaster management officer, said.

"They are talking about 630, but there might be more," he added, confirming a figure given to reporters by local councilor Yakubu Haruna by the side of a fresh 50-by-10 metre burial plot in the Central rural town of Yelwa.