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The attacks have killed and injured scores — last month, an attack in . The has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms.

The state's commissioner, Nasir Mu’azu, said the army and police have deployed in the area of Unguwan Mantau to prevent further attacks, adding that gunmen often hide among the crops in farms during the rainy season to carry out assaults on communities.

He added that the mosque attack was likely in retaliation for a raid by Unguwan Mantau townspeople, who over the weekend ambushed and killed several of the gunmen in the area.

Dozens of armed groups take advantage of the limited security presence in Nigeria’s mineral-rich regions, carrying out attacks on villages and along major roads.

The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence.

Separate from the conflict between farming and herding communities, , where some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, according to the United Nations.