At least 140 people were killed armed men who attacked remote villages for two days North-central Nigeria This is what survivors and officials in Plateau State said.

It was the latest mass murder of its kind attributed to the state this year Farmer-herder crisis in a West African country.

The attackers targeted 17 communities in “senseless and unprovoked” attacks on Saturday and Sunday that left most houses in the areas burned, Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang said in a broadcast on local channel Channels Television.

“As I speak to you, we have buried 15 people in Mangu local government alone. As of this morning, we count no fewer than 100 corpses in Bokkos. I am yet to take stock (of deaths in) Barkin Ladi,” he said.

“It was a very terrible Christmas for us here in Plateau.”

Amnesty International NigeriaThe organization’s office told the Associated Press that it had confirmed 140 deaths in the Christian-dominated Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi townships of Plateau, based on data compiled by field workers and local officials, although locals reported a higher number Death toll feared with some people missing.

Some said it took more than 12 hours for security authorities to respond to their call for help. The AP could not independently verify that claim, but it reflects earlier concerns about slow interventions in Nigeria’s security crisis that has killed hundreds of people this year, including in Plateau.

“I called security but they never came. The ambush started at six in the evening but security reached our house at seven in the morning,” said Sunday Dawum, a youth leader in Bokkos.

At least 27 people were killed in his village of Mbom Mbaru, including his brother, he said.

No group claimed the attacks, although the blame fell on herders from the Fulani tribe, who were accused of mass killings in the northwest and central regions, where a decades-long conflict over access to land and water has exacerbated sectarian divisions between Christians and Muslims in Africais the most populous nation.

The Nigerian army said it had begun “clearance operations” with the help of other security agencies in search of the suspects, although arrests in such attacks are rare.

“We will not rest until we bring to book all those responsible for these heinous acts,” said Abdullsalam Abubakar, who commands the army’s special intervention operation in Plateau and neighboring states.

President Bola Tinubu, who was elected this year after promising to help address security challenges that his predecessor failed to address, has yet to make public comments on the recent attacks.

His administration and other governments have failed in the past to take “tangible measures” to protect lives and ensure justice for victims in the conflict-affected northern region, Isa Sanusi, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, told the AP.

“Sometimes they claim to make arrests, but there is no evidence of this. The authorities’ brazen failure to protect the people of Nigeria is gradually becoming the norm,” he said.