The local administration blames shepherds for the incident.
Armed men attacked a village and killed dozens of people on Wednesday in central Nigeria. Local authorities reported the incident on Friday.
The attack took place in Benue state, where mutual attacks between herdsmen and farmers competing for land and resources are common.
A representative of the local administration told news agency AFP on Friday that more than 40 bodies had been found and many people were still missing. The local administration blames the incident on shepherds, who it says have attacked local communities in the past month. Soldiers have been sent to the area to calm the situation.
The motive for the attack is unknown. In Benue, disputes between farmers and herdsmen have been fierce, as farmers see the herdsmen as destroying farmland for cattle grazing.
The representative of the nomadic organization has warned that shepherds should not be blamed without an investigation. According to the organization, shepherds may be involved in some attacks, but to blame them for every attack is unfair and prejudiced. The organization demands an investigation into what happened to find the culprits.
The authorities according to the report, the attack happened in the afternoon, when people were mourning the three people killed the day before.
Inter-community violence is one of the security challenges that the president-elect faces Bola Tinubu is to be resolved. There were long delays in the elections, and accusations of electoral fraud have also been made.
Nigeria is also tormented by the jihadist conflict that has lasted for more than a decade in the northwestern part of the country and separatist attacks in the southeast. In the communities of the regions, violence has expanded into crime, as heavily armed attackers loot villages and kidnap people in droves in the hope of ransom.
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