Gunfire heard, smoke seen rising in Nigeria's Lagos

Gunshots rang out in the affluent Ikoyi neighbourhood of Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos on Thursday, one witness said.

Smoke was also seen rising from the direction of Ikoyi correctional facility, a prison, the witness told Reuters.

A Reuters witness saw two trucks carrying police heading towards the prison.

The city of 20 million is under a round-the-clock curfew imposed after nearly two weeks of protests against police brutality - the West African nation's biggest wave of unrest since the end of military rule in 1999.

Several states are also under curfew and the oil-producing Delta state said it would enter a 48-hour curfew from 17:00 on Thursday.

Unrest escalated on Wednesday as groups of young men and armed police clashed in some neighbourhoods following a shooting on Tuesday night at a toll gate in the Lagos district of Lekki.

(Additional reporting by Angela Ukomadu in Lagos and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Tomasz Janowski and Andrew Heavens)

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