Inter-communal clashes in the western part of central Nigeria killed at least 48 people on Wednesday, a security report said on Thursday.

The report, prepared for the United Nations, said "herder militia" armed with machetes raided farmers from the Kamuku ethnic group in the town of Tegina in Niger state, "killing at least 42 people", prompting a reprisal that killed six herders working in a plantation.

A local community leader Abdullahi Alhassan told AFP that herders from the Fulani ethnic group invaded the area, attacking residents with machetes and burning homes.

"The raid was reprisals for the killing last month of the herders' patriarch they blamed on vigilantes from Kamuku farmers," Alhassan said.

Retaliatory attacks

Kamuku farmers launched retaliatory attacks on three herding settlements around Tegina, also burning homes and killing at least two herders, Alhassan said.

Last month Kamuku farmers killed Muhammad Shehu, a respected community leader among the herders, over the sharing of money donated to the community by a politician, the security report said.

The killing of the herders' leader led to "a cycle of communal rifts between the two communities", it said.

Nigeria's northwestern and central regions regularly see deadly clashes over land and water exploitation between farming and herding communities, which has worsened in recent years because of population pressure and climate change.