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.
