ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen attacked a mosque in northwestern Nigeria on Tuesday morning, killing not less than 13 folks throughout morning prayers, native authorities stated.
Nobody instantly claimed accountability for the assault within the city of Unguwan Mantau, within the state of Katsina, however such assaults are frequent in Nigeria’s northwestern and north-central areas the place native herders and farmers usually conflict over restricted entry to land and water.
The assaults have killed and injured scores — final month, an assault in north-central Nigeria killed 150 folks. The extended battle has turn out to be deadlier in recent times, with authorities and analysts warning that extra herdsmen are taking on arms.
The state’s commissioner, Nasir Mu’azu, stated the military and police have deployed within the space of Unguwan Mantau to stop additional assaults, including that gunmen usually disguise among the many crops in farms in the course of the wet season to hold out assaults on communities.
He added that the mosque assault was seemingly in retaliation for a raid by Unguwan Mantau townspeople, who over the weekend ambushed and killed a number of of the gunmen within the space.
Dozens of armed teams benefit from the restricted safety presence in Nigeria’s mineral-rich areas, finishing up assaults on villages and alongside main roads.
The farmers accuse the herders, largely of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that had been first backed by regulation in 1965, 5 years after the nation gained its independence.
Separate from the battle between farming and herding communities, Nigeria is battling to include Boko Haram insurgents within the northeast, the place some 35,000 civilians have been killed and greater than 2 million displaced, in line with the United Nations.
