Muslim militia killed three Christians in central Nigeria bringing the unofficial death toll from two months of tit-for-tat violence to 226.
A police spokesman said Hausa Fulani ethnic militiamen attacked the villages of Rwang Doka and Jenkur in the southern part of Plateau state on Sunday killing three and destroying several houses.
"It was a reprisal attack in the ongoing communal crisis," the spokesman told reporters in the state capital Jos.
Inter-ethnic fighting in the remote farming communities of Plateau state had already killed at least 223 people since mid-February and displaced more than 6,000 across three states, according to Red Cross officials, army officers and witnesses.
The Muslim Hausa-Fulani people, mostly cattle herders, lived alongside the Christian Tarok farmers in relative peace for decades until fighting broke out in 2001.
About 1,250 people have been killed in the area since then.
In this case, the attackers retreated to neighbouring Taraba state when security forces closed in on them, the police said.
Fighting between the same groups was also reported in Jawando village, in Plateau state, but no one was killed there.
The police sent reinforcements to the area to restore order.
A Christian leader in Kaduna state, which also borders Plateau, said last week that Islamic extremists in the region were being funded by foreign militant groups, although Islamic leaders have said there is no evidence for this.
At least 10,000 people have been killed in religious, ethnic and political fighting in Nigeria since the restoration of democracy to the oil exporting country in 1999.