She added that other people had been killed in neighbouring villages, but she had no figures.

Victor said he and other locals had buried five people, including a father and two of his sons killed in the village of Tewa Biana “very close to a military base”.

Benue State Police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine confirmed two attacks in the area but said her office had received “no report of 20 people” killed.

She said one raid resulted in the death of a policeman who had “repelled an attack” and that “three dead bodies were discovered”.

The motive for the violence was not clear, but Victor blamed the “co-ordinated attacks” on Fulani cattle herders.

Muslim ethnic Fulani nomadic herders have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, in Benue over access to land and resources.

The attacks in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt often take on a religious or ethnic dimension.

Benue has been one of the states hit hardest by such violence between nomadic herders and farmers who blame herdsmen for destroying farmland by grazing cattle.

-Agence France-Presse