More than 50 people are reported to have been killed in a land dispute between indigenous farmers and "settlers" in northeast Nigeria in the past week.
Armed youths of the Mambilla ethnic group attacked three ethnic Fulani communities on the hilly Mambilla Plateau area of Taraba State on Saturday, Taraba State spokesman Mr Jeji Williams said.
The Fulani, a normally nomadic people, have farmed in the area for years but are still considered "settlers" by the Mambilla. This has caused tensions and occasional outbursts of fighting, the latest of which erupted last week with 50 people killed, Mr Williams said.
"The renewed clash was a carryover of an earlier one at Gembu last week in which about 50 people were killed," the government spokesman explained. He said more people had been killed over the weekend but the numbers of dead were not immediately known.
The fighting between the two groups dates back to 1918 when the area, once part of Cameroon, was held under the control of the United Nations at the end of World War I. The Mambilla were given control of the area and it takes its name from them.
The area joined Nigeria after a plebiscite in 1959.
AFP