JOS, Nigeria — Raids and reprisal attacks have left 58 people dead in Christian villages near a Nigerian city where authorities have struggled to contain religious violence, officials said Sunday.

Assailants launched ‘‘sophisticated attacks’’ on several villages near Jos early Saturday, said Mustapha Salisu, spokesman for a special task force made up of police officers and soldiers deployed in the area to curb years of violence.

Salisu said the special task force fought back for hours and lost two officers in the battle.

Late Sunday, a Nigerian Red Cross official, Andronicus Adeyemo, said aid workers had counted 56 dead and more than 300 displaced people from the attacks. He said the killing of a federal lawmaker and a state lawmaker brought the deaths to 58 after the two officials were ambushed Sunday afternoon on their way to a mass burial for the victims.

The state government’s press officer, James Mannock, said they were Senator Gyang Dantong and the majority leader of the Plateau state House of Assembly, Gyang Fulani.

A third lawmaker hurt in the ambush was one of seven people injured, Adeyemo said.

‘‘As a nation, we must rise against those who are determined to return us to a state of nature where life has little or no value,’’ said David Mark, Nigerian Senate president, in a statement.

Authorities declined to comment on who they suspect, but similar raids have been blamed on Muslim herdsmen in the past.

Mark Lipdo, who runs a Christian advocacy group known as the Stefanos Foundation, gave a list of the 13 villages where he got reports of attacks. He said they were all Christian.