KADUNA, Nigeria (AP) — About 100 victims of Muslim-Christian religious riots were dumped into a mass grave and anguished residents salvaged belongings from burned-out homes Wednesday in northern Nigeria.

Authorities have been reluctant to give an exact death toll, fearing it will only further inflame the rival groups. However, police and hospital sources said more than 100 people had died.

Witnesses and journalists who visited the worst-hit areas said the actual toll could be two or three times as high. In addition, hundreds of homes were badly damaged or destroyed in three residential parts of the city that saw heavy fighting Monday and Tuesday.

The dead, gathered from three hospitals in Kaduna, were placed in a mass grave dug beside the road leading to the city's new airport, government officials said Wednesday. Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition.

Minor skirmishes were brought under control by the large security force patrolling the streets. Schools and many businesses were closed and parts of the city remained tense, but some stores reopened, and cars lined up at gas stations that had been shut since the weekend.

Police told residents to hand in guns and said a house-to-house search for weapons would begin soon.

``This warning has become very necessary in view of the large number of people already arrested with such arms,'' said Mohammed Shehu, police commissioner for Kaduna state. More than 140 people have been arrested, he said.

The fighting broke out Monday after some residents in the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Narayi blamed Muslims for an earlier killing of a local man, Shehu said. Armed with clubs, stones and machetes, the Christians attacked and burned Muslim homes in the Barnawa community, and the Muslims in turn launched reprisals.