Gunmen have killed more than 100 people in an attack on three villages in central Nigeria, according to local government officials. Police confirmed raids by Fulani herdsman late on Friday on the villages of Ugwar Sankwai, Ungwan Gata and Chenshyi, in Kaduna state, an area where longstanding disputes over land, religion and ethnicity often erupt into violence, but declined to give a death toll.

Hundreds have been killed in the past year in clashes between the cattle-herding and largely Muslim Fulani people and mostly Christian settled communities such as the Berom in Nigeria's volatile "Middle Belt", where its mostly Christian south and Muslim north meet.

"Fulani gunmen came across from neighbouring Plateau state and just opened fire on the villagers at around 11pm," said Daniel Anyip, vice-chairman of the Kaura local government authority. "We are still picking bodies out of the bush but so far there is more than 100 killed."

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