JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 11 people have been killed in spiralling violence between Christian and Muslim youths in central Nigeria's volatile Plateau state since Sunday night, authorities and a Reuters reporter said on Monday.
The latest deaths bring the total number of people killed in the ethnically and religiously-mixed area in the past week to at least 50.
Plateau state spokesman Yiljap Abraham took journalists to see the bodies from two attacks, one in the village of Zakaleu, where seven people were killed, and the other in a village called Kuru. Several houses had also been burnt down.
"At about 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) some people invaded the community while some of them were sleeping," said Timothy Buba, a government councillor from Jos, Plateau state's capital, referring to the attack in Zakaleu.
"Seven lives were lost. Some were burnt and three others are now in the hospital. The people and the houses were set on fire and even from the distance, you can see some smoke."
Muslim youths hacked a Christian family of eight to death in Nigeria's volatile Plateau state earlier on Sunday, local officials said, continuing a week of violence that has pitted gangs from the two faiths against each other and civilians.
The cycle of violence started when Christian youths attacked some Muslims as they gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the city of Jos, capital of Plateau state.
"We ... believe that the attack was carried out with the sole aim that the people of this community would retaliate and stage a reprisal attack and provoke reprisals without end," Buba said.
Plateau state straddles the "Middle Belt" between Nigeria's mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south.
The unrest is another challenge for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is already dealing with near-daily attacks in the northeast by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.
Authorities have blamed the group for an August 26 bombing of U.N. offices in Abuja that killed 23 people.
(Reporting by Shuabu Mohammed and Buhari Bello; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
