Zamfara police spokesman Yazid Abubakar said the attack took place between Thursday night and Friday in a remote village where ”there were few access routes” but that the area had now returned to normal.
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At least 38 people were killed in an attack by armed groups on the village of Dutse Dan Ajia in Nigeria's northwestern Zamfara state, local police and officials told AFP on Saturday.
The attack took place between Thursday night and Friday in a remote village where "there were few access routes" but the area has now returned to normal, said Zamfara police spokesman Yazid Abubakar. Local lawmaker Hamisu Farooq said more than 50 people were feared dead.
Armed gangs, locally known as "bandits", live in the forests spread across Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger states and attack villages. The Nigerian army has been deployed in the region for years to combat these groups, but violence continues.
The United States has been concerned in recent months by a surge in violence in Nigeria by jihadist groups and bandits.
Washington, which has described the violence as “persecution” of Christians, ordered a surprise airstrike on Christmas Day in coordination with Nigerian authorities in the northern state of Sokoto.
Since 2009, a jihadist insurgency in Nigeria led by Boko Haram and its rival group Islamic State West Africa has killed more than 40,000 people in the country’s northeast and displaced two million.
