Dozens of civilians were killed and abducted when jihadist fighters attacked two villages in Nigeria's Niger state during Friday prayers, according to officials and witnesses.
The armed group Lakurawa, comprising several hundred men carrying guns, knives and machetes, assaulted the village of Dikera as worshippers finished midday prayers, according to local lawmaker Jafaru Mohammed. The assault spread to the nearby village of Binzi. A rival jihadist faction known as Mahmuda then intervened and clashed with the attackers, witnesses said.
Lakurawa is believed by researchers to have links to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which operates across Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. The Nigerian government claimed last August to have dismantled Mahmuda along with another group, Ansaru. Niger state was also the site of a mass abduction last November, when gunmen seized 303 students and 12 staff from a Catholic school in Papiri.