Lagos , Nigeria ( CNN ) -- More than 160 people have been arrested in connection with the massacre earlier this month of scores of people in central Nigeria , a national police spokesman told CNN Monday . Of the 163 arrested , 41 will be charged with homicide , said spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu . The other 122 will be charged with rioting , arson and possession of firearms , he said . More than 200 people died in the March 7 massacre , according to some estimates . They took place in predominately Christian towns near the city of Jos , where about 150 people , mostly Muslims , were reported killed in January . The region lies on a faith-based fault line between Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria and the mainly Christian south . Ojukwu said the ethnic backgrounds of those arrested are mixed , but they are all from the area near Jos . Human Rights Watch said the attacks by Muslims with guns , machetes and knives apparently were in retaliation for the previous attacks against Islamic communities and the theft of cattle from herdsmen . Last week , at least 11 more people were killed in a predominantly Christian village . Choji Gyang , special adviser on religious affairs to the governor of the Nigerian state of Plateau , has said the attackers were Muslim herdsmen , some dressed in military uniforms . They also stole about 120 cattle from the village , he said . The violence has put much of oil-rich Nigeria , Africa 's most populous nation , on edge . Authorities in Lagos took the unusual step of sending a text message to residents earlier this month to try to put them at ease . The violence often pits Christians and Muslims against each other . But John Onaiyekan , Roman Catholic archbishop of Abuja , Nigeria , and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo have said that the violence is fueled more by other factors : ethnic , social and economic problems . `` If you have one group or a community that has land that 's been encroached upon by another community or even by itinerant cattle farmers , then the people who lay claim to the land will fight back , '' Obasanjo recently told CNN . `` If there are job opportunities in an area , and persons believe they are indigenous to that area , and ( are ) not getting enough out of the jobs that are available , they will fight those who are getting the jobs . ''
More than 200 people were slain on March 7 in mostly Christian towns . Of the 163 arrested , 41 will be charged with homicide . Massacre thought to be in retaliation for deaths of about 150 Muslims in January . Nigeria has a mainly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south .