Deadly clashes between nomads and farmers have multiplied recently in the Benue and Plateau states.

At least 56 people are reported to have been killed as suspected nomadic cattle herders carried out twin attacks in central Nigeria‘s Benue State this week.

The governor’s office sharply revised a previous toll of 17 Saturday. The number of dead could rise even further as search-and-rescue operations continue, a government spokesman said.

Police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine said in a statement on Friday that “a large number of suspected militia had invaded” a region of Benue State overnight. The attack came amid a resurgence of deadly clashes between herders and farmers, a conflict that has killed hundreds over recent years.

Security forces were deployed and as the assailants “were being repelled in the early hours of today, they shot sporadically at unsuspecting farmers” killing five farmers in Benue’s Ukum area.

Police said a second attack took place in Logo, about 70km from the area of the first incident.

“Unfortunately an unsuspected simultaneous attack was carried out” in a neighbouring locality, where 12 people were killed before police arrived, the police spokesperson said.

The attacks came just two days after 11 people were killed in the Otukpo area of Benue, and barely a week after gunmen attacked villages and killed more than 50 people in neighbouring Plateau State.

Since 2019, clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities have killed more than 500 people in the region and forced 2.2 million to leave their homes, according to research firm SBM Intelligence.

The clashes, mostly between Muslim Fulani herders and Christian farmers from the Berom and Irigwe ethnic groups, are often painted as ethnoreligious.

However, analysts have said climate change and scarcity of pastoral land are pitting the farmers and herders against each other, irrespective of faith.

The conflict has disrupted food supplies from north-central Nigeria, a significant agricultural area.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies