In Nigeria, at least 55 people were killed in two new attacks on Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 January in the central state of Plateau, the scene of deadly inter-community violence since Christmas, local Nigerian Red Cross sources said on Thursday, Ednews reports referring to LeMonde and AFP.

Despite a curfew imposed on Tuesday in the Mangu district, schools, places of worship and houses were burnt down and ransacked during these two attacks, community leaders said. "Two IDP camps have been set up in the town of Mangu for around 1,500 people," Nurudeen Husaini Magaji, local chairman of the Nigerian Red Cross, told AFP. The governor of Plateau announced a curfew on Tuesday after a new clash triggered, according to the authorities, by a dispute between a herdsman moving his cattle and other residents using the road. The second attack took place in the town of Mangu, also between Tuesday and Wednesday. The Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), a Muslim community organisation, said that places of worship and faith schools had been attacked.

Clashes in the northern and central states of Nigeria are fuelled by communal tensions over land use between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. But this type of attack has degenerated into wider criminality. Heavily armed gangs, known locally as 'bandits', attack villages, looting and kidnapping for ransom. At Christmas, the attacks affected around twenty villages in the districts of Bokkos and Barkin Ladi, neighbouring the district of Mangu. These massacres caused a stir in the country, but also within the international community. Since then, there have been recurrent attacks in the region, displacing thousands of people.

Since coming to power in May, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made the fight against insecurity his top priority, particularly with a view to attracting foreign investment to the country.