Moscow police have detained 16 Nigerian students accused of smashing furniture inside their country’s embassy, reportedly in anger over unpaid grants.

The 16 suspects were removed from the embassy building at the request of Nigerian staff, Russia’s interior ministry told local media.

All of them are enrolled at colleges of higher education in Russia, it added.

Other African students in Russia have protested in the past over their home countries' failure to pay their grants.

The 16 students arrested in Moscow face administrative charges, the interior ministry said.

Trouble erupted at the embassy on Malaya Nikitskaya Street following a hearing for the students over their financial problems, according to a police source quoted by Ria-Novosti news agency.

Furniture was smashed in the reception room, after which the students reportedly threatened to damage the embassy’s other rooms.

Last year, Nigerian students beat up an embassy representative over non-payment of grants, Russia's lenta.ru news website reports.

Thousands of African students have passed through the educational system in Moscow and other Russian cities in a tradition dating back to Soviet times, when the communist government subsidised their studies.

•Credit (except photo): BBC. Photo shows Nigeria’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiory to Russia, H.E. Assam Ekanem Assam (SAN).