Intercommunal violence in western central Nigeria killed at least 48 people on Wednesday, a security report seen by AFP said on Thursday.
The report, prepared for the United Nations, said “herder militia” armed with machetes raided farmers from the Kamuku ethnic group in the town of Tegina in Niger state, “killing at least 42 people,” prompting a reprisal that killed six herders working in a plantation.
Niger state is already reeling from deadly violence by jihadists as well as kidnapping-for-ransom and cattle rustling gangs called bandits.
A local community leader Abdullahi Alhassan told AFP that herders from the Fulani ethnic group invaded the area, attacking residents with machetes and burning others alive in their homes.
“The raid was reprisals for the killing last month of the herders’ patriarch they blamed on vigilantes from Kamuku farmers,” Alhassan said.
Kamuku farmers launched retaliatory attacks on three herding settlements around Tegina, also burning homes and killing at least two herders, Alhassan said.
“These communal conflicts tend to be targeted attacks triggered by longstanding disputes and are usually concentrated within areas around the conflicted communities and herder groups,” the security report said.
Nigeria’s northwestern and central regions regularly see deadly violence over land and water exploitation between farming and herding communities, which has worsened in recent years because of population pressure and climate change.
