More than 100 people have been killed in Nigeria's troubled northern region, survivors said, as authorities continued to search for bodies and suspects after three days of violence.
Bandits arrived in large numbers in the Anka and Bukkuyum local government areas of Zamfara state on Tuesday evening, shooting and burning down houses until Thursday, according to Abubakar Ahmed, a resident in Bukkuyum.
More than 100 people were killed, Ahmed said, adding that as many as nine communities were affected by the incident.
One resident in Anka, Aliyu Anka, said the casualty figure was more than 100. In one village, they killed people from 20 years and above, he said. Some were buried, some were burned and we are still looking for bodies. No group claimed responsibility for the attack but blame fell quickly on the armed groups who have carried out thousands of abductions and killings in the north-west and central states of the West African nation.
Ibrahim Dosara, Zamfara's commissioner for information, told AP they were waiting for more information about the incident, including the number of casualties. He said a military aircraft had been deployed along with security forces as a manhunt for the attackers.
The latest incident is one of the deadliest in recent years. It came as Nigerian authorities claimed they were having success in the fight against the armed groups. The widespread banditry in Nigeria's north-west is in addition to the Islamic extremist insurgency in the north-east that has lasted more than a decade.
Security analysts and residents say that some of the bandits, whom Nigerian authorities have designated as terrorists, are joining forces with the extremist rebels.
The groups consist mostly of young men from the Fulani ethnic group, who had traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders, but are caught up in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over access to water and grazing land.
According to Oluwole Ojewale, a researcher at the Africa-focused Institute for Security Studies, the Nigerian security personnel are outnumbered and outgunned by the assailants.
In Zamfara state we don't have adequate security but in some areas we don't have security at all, said Yusuf Ibrahim in Gusau, the state capital.
Dosara blames informants for the persistent attacks. One of the problems is that we have a lot of informants who are trying to get information to these people the attackers, a challenge that experts say continues as a result of the extreme poverty in many affected communities.
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