Nigeria mosque attack death toll rises to 50, lawmaker says

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — The death toll from a shooting at a mosque in northwestern Nigeria has risen to 50, a local official said Wednesday.

Gunmen stormed the mosque in the town of Unguwan Mantau, in Katsina state, during morning prayers on Tuesday, according to lawmaker Aminu Ibrahim.

“The bandits killed 30 people and burnt 20 others during attacks on several villages,” Ibrahim told the state parliament on Wednesday.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Such attacks are common in Nigeria’s northwestern and north-central regions, where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water. An attack last month in north-central Nigeria killed 150 people.

The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms.

On Tuesday the Katsina state commissioner, Nasir Mu’azu, said the army and police have deployed in the area of Unguwan Mantau to prevent further attacks, adding that gunmen often hide among the crops in farms during the rainy season to carry out assaults on communities.

He said the mosque attack was likely in retaliation for a raid by Unguwan Mantau townspeople at the weekend when several gunmen were ambushed and killed.

Dozens of armed groups take advantage of the limited security presence in Nigeria’s mineral-rich regions, carrying out attacks on villages and along major roads.

The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence.

Separate from the conflict between farming and herding communities, Nigeria is battling to contain Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast, where some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, according to the United Nations.