JOS (Nigeria) - DAILY life began returning to normal on Monday to a riot-hit Nigerian city after two days of election-related violence killed more than 300 people.

People who had cowered at home during the clashes went out again into the streets in search of food, fuel and information.

Shopkeepers rolled back grates from their windows. Long lines formed at petrol stations, and young men hawked newspapers from the stacks they carried.

The ethnic and religious rioting over Friday and Saturday left more than 300 people dead in Jos - the worst violence in the West African nation since 2004.

It began early on Friday as clashes between supporters of two political parties after Jos held its first local election in more than a decade. The violence expanded along ethnic and religious lines, pitting Christians against Muslims. At least 300 bodies were taken to the central mosque.

Thousands of people fled to army barracks, police stations and other public buildings for refuge before Sunday, when troops on foot and in armored personnel carriers appeared to have quelled the violence.

Jos - the capital of Plateau State - has a history of community violence that has made elections difficult to organize. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700 people in 2004.

The city is situated in Nigeria's 'middle belt,' where dozens of ethnic groups mingle in a band of fertile and hotly contested land separating the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa; it straddles a fault line between Islam and Christianity that crosses the continent from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. -- AP