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KADUNA, Nigeria, Monday (Reuters) Warning shots rang out in the Nigerian city of Kaduna during the night as troops enforced a curfew after Christian-Muslim riots, sparked by plans for a Miss World pageant, killed at least 175 people.

After organisers scrapped plans to host the contest in Nigeria's capital Abuja on December 7 because of the deaths, a planeload of relieved beauty queens arrived in London where it will now be held on the same date.

Anxiety gripped the mainly Muslim city on the fourth night of a curfew imposed to stop the rioting, which broke out last week after a newspaper enraged Muslims by saying the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married a Miss World contestant.

The Nigerian Red Cross raised its estimated death toll in Kaduna to 175 from 105 and religious leaders warned the violence could torpedo Nigeria's coming elections.

Nigeria is headed for presidential elections next year that have been overshadowed by the country's worst cycle of religious and political violence since independence from Britain in 1960.

Reverend James Movel Wuye, a co-leader of a Muslim-Christian mediation group in Kaduna, said restoring calm to the city would be key test for the government.

"Kaduna is a mini Nigeria where many interests converge. If you hold Kaduna together it means you can hold Nigeria together," he told Reuters.

His views were echoed by Imam Nurayn Mohammed Ashafa, co-chairman on the Inter-faith Mediation Committee formed after 3,000 people died during sectarian bloodletting two years ago.

"The government must work hard," Ashafa told Reuters. "This event has created a great wall between Christians and Muslims."

But he said he supported an attack on the Kaduna offices of Lagos-based This Day newspaper which had published the article that angered Muslims.

More than 10,000 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes in different corners of Africa's most populous country of over 120 million people since riots broke out in 2000.

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