Via the Taipei Times, AP reports:

Police and soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri yesterday, one day after thousands of Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 15 people.

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On Saturday, rioters burned 15 Christian churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said.

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A reporter on the scene saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around one man, poured gas on him and set him ablaze.

Chima Ezeoke, a Christian Maiduguri resident, said the protesters attacked and looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins in the country’s south.

“Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters,” Ezeoke said.

Witnesses said three children and a Catholic priest were among those killed.

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Thousands of people have died in this West African country since 2000 in religious violence fueled by the adoption of the strict Islamic or Shariah legal code by a dozen states in the north, seen by most Christians as a move to impose religious hegemony on non-Muslims.