World News 25-11-2002 Miss World Death Toll Rises To 215 who: Nigerian Red Cross president Emmanuel Ijewere what: Says 215 died in riots stirred up by Miss World pageant where: Nigeria when: Yesterday snippet: "Miss World contestants arrived at Gatwick airport yesterday morning, looking tired but relieved," reports The Guardian, "while the violent protests of the past week in Nigeria, which have claimed more than 200 lives, raged on." And who can the "92 Miss World beauties" thank for their airlift to safety? Why The Sun of course, which proudly boasts this morning that it "dashed to their aid" (ie. chartered a plane) after the "four British hopefuls rang our newsdesk and begged: Get us out of here." Emmanuel Ijewere, president of the Nigerian Red Cross, says there have been 215 killings in the city of Kaduna; about and 1,100 people have been injured and 11,000 made homeless as the result of violence between Muslims and Christians sparked off by a single article in a Lagos newspaper about the Miss World beauty pageant. "The article, which the paper retracted and repeatedly publicly apologised for, suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would have probably chosen to marry one of the Miss World contestants had he witnessed the beauty pageant," explains the BBC. A Miss World publicist says that the event will now be held in London on December 8th (it was held at the Millennium Dome in 2000 and at Olympia in 1999) but, says The Times, the organisers insist "this violence is not connected to us". [... more]

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