Motorcycle-borne gunmen have massacred villagers in Niger State’s Borgu area, killing at least 46 people in a coordinated series of attacks that underscore the deepening security crisis in north-central Nigeria.

Witnesses and humanitarian sources say the assailants swept into three rural communities at dawn, moving with speed and precision. In Konkoso, the worst-hit village, at least 38 residents were either shot dead or had their throats slit. Most homes were torched, and rescuers continue to recover bodies from the ashes and surrounding bush.

Survivors describe a methodical assault. One resident said the gunmen first struck Tungar Makeri, where police later confirmed six people were killed, before advancing on Konkoso. Houses were set ablaze, livestock stolen and an unknown number of villagers abducted. Among the dead in Konkoso was the nephew of one resident, who recounted how four women were seized as the attackers moved on.

From Konkoso, the gunmen rode to nearby Pissa, where they reportedly set a police station on fire and killed one person. Local people say many residents from all three communities remain missing, feared dead or taken into the surrounding forests.

The attacks took place near the Kainji Forest, a vast, sparsely governed area straddling the border between Niger and Kwara states that has become a sanctuary for jihadist factions and criminal gangs known locally as bandits. The region has already witnessed one of the deadliest assaults in recent memory, when more than 160 people were killed in Woro, Kwara State.

Analysts say the latest killings highlight how Nigeria’s overlapping security crises are converging. The country is battling a long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast, violent clashes between farmers and herders in the north-central belt, separatist unrest in the southeast and a lucrative kidnapping-for-ransom industry in the northwest.

Groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have expanded their footprint into northwestern and west-central Nigeria, exploiting porous borders and instability in neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso. The al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims has already claimed responsibility for an attack near Woro, marking its first acknowledged operation on Nigerian soil.

Religious and community leaders in Borgu have appealed to President Bola Tinubu to establish a permanent military base in the area, warning that without a stronger state presence, more villages risk being overrun and emptied by fear.