At least six people belonging to the Bodo tribe have been killed in two separate attacks by members of the Santhal tribe in India's north-eastern state of Assam.

Police say armed Santhals attacked the Bodo villages of Bandarbool and Garegaon, and that three of the victims were women.

A BBC correspondent in Calcutta says the Bodos and Santhal tribes have been engaged in a bitter ethnic conflict for two years in which more than thee-hundred people have died.