Nigeria, Aug 20 (V7N) — At least 27 worshippers were killed in the early hours of Tuesday when armed assailants stormed a mosque in Unguwan Mantau town in Nigeria’s northwestern Katsina state during morning prayers, local officials confirmed.
 
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but such incidents have become increasingly common in Nigeria’s northwestern and north-central regions, where longstanding conflicts between herders and farmers over access to land and water have escalated into violent confrontations.
 
According to Katsina State Commissioner Nasir Mu’azu, the Nigerian army and police have been deployed in the affected area to prevent further violence. He said attackers often use dense crop cover during the rainy season to hide and ambush local communities. Authorities suspect that this attack may have been a retaliatory response to a recent incident where residents of Unguwan Mantau ambushed and killed several armed men operating in the vicinity.
 
The conflict between farming and herding communities has intensified in recent years, with herdsmen—predominantly of Fulani ethnicity—often accused of letting their livestock graze on farmland and destroy crops. The herders, on the other hand, claim historical grazing rights that were recognized by law in 1965, shortly after Nigeria’s independence.
 
The broader insecurity in the region is compounded by the activities of armed criminal groups that exploit weak security infrastructure to carry out raids along highways and in rural villages. Last month, a separate attack in north-central Nigeria reportedly claimed the lives of over 150 people.
 
In addition to these localized conflicts, Nigeria continues to struggle with the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast. The United Nations estimates that more than 35,000 civilians have been killed and over 2 million displaced since the conflict began over a decade ago.
 
The Nigerian government faces mounting pressure to address the growing violence and restore stability in its conflict-prone regions.
 
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