LAFIA, May 21: Some 55,000 mostly Muslim refugees fled their homes in central Nigeria's Plateau State to seek shelter in neighbouring states to escape ethnic attacks, officials said on Friday.

The displaced are being housed in makeshift camps, with limited facilities, in Bauchi and Nasarawa States. Tens of thousands have fled a recent outbreak of fighting, but others have been displaced over the past three years.

"It is very difficult to have a global figure for the internally displaced people, but according to security reports there are at least 20,000 IDPs in the whole state," said Lubabatu Dalhatu of Nasarawa's Emergency Response Agency.

"The Red Cross is helping us to manage the sick ones. We have already brought food and medicines, as well as mats and blankets, but there is a space problem, the people are too many," she said in the town of Lafia.

Mohammed Abdullahi, spokesman for the Bauchi State government, said: "As at now we have at least 35,000 displaced who left their homes in Shendam-Yelwa and are taking refuge here."

"They are temporarily houses in four camps provided for them on the outskirts of the town," he said, talking by telephone from Bauchi city. A simmering three-year-old fight between Tarok Christians and Hausa-Fulani Muslims for control of southern Plateau's farmland exploded on May 2 when Tarok militiamen slaughtered more than 200 Muslims in the town of Yelwa.

Following a long pattern of attack and counter-attack, Muslim fighters responded with bloody raids on Christian villages. President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in the state and deposed its governor.

In Lafia, state officials have set up a makeshift refugee centre in Dunama primary school. "We are 9,650 gathered here," said the self-described "secretary general" of the camp, Alhadji Musa. Obasanjo has re-appointed a former Plateau State military governor, retired general Chris Ali, to restore order. -AFP