LAGOS - At least 11 people have been killed in an attack on a village near the central Nigerian city of Jos, a region where hundreds have died in sectarian violence this year.

LAGOS - At least 11 people have been killed in an attack on a village near the central Nigerian city of Jos, a region where hundreds have died in sectarian violence this year.

Plateau state radio said yesterday the attack on the village in the Riyom area, 30km south of Jos, took place at about 1.30am, citing the Riyom local council chairperson.

The report said women and children were among the dead.

"We have heard that a village was attacked last night," a Red Cross spokesperson in Jos said, adding the agency had sent a team of volunteers to the village.

The army, which has been enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew in and around Jos since January, could not confirm any attack.

Army spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Galadima Shekari said: "Up until now the commander on the ground in the area has not sent any report."

Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, lies at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south, a region known as the "Middle Belt".

Fierce competition for control of fertile farmlands between Christian and animist indigenous groups and Muslim settlers from the north have repeatedly triggered unrest in the region over the past decade. - Reuters