Suspected Boko Haram militants have launched an attack in a village near the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing about 45 people.
Survivors told the BBC the attackers said they had come to preach, before opening fire on a crowd that gathered.
Meanwhile, residents and officials fear at least 200 people were killed in a wave of attacks earlier this week.
Maiduguri and surrounding areas have not suffered many attacks since a state of emergency was imposed a year ago.
Remote areas are now usually targeted instead.
Nigeria’s government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do more to tackle Boko Haram since militants kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.
The group has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since 2009 in an attempt to create an Islamic state in Nigeria – and thousands of people have died in their attacks and the subsequent security crackdown.
- Sunday – Tuesday: At least 200 people killed by gunmen in military dress in a wave of attacks on six villages in the Gwoza area of Borno state
- Wednesday: Some 45 people killed by militants posing as preachers in Barderi village near Maiduguri, the capital Borno State
- Thursday: Two killed in gunfire exchange in village of Madagali, Adamawa state
Villagers ‘tricked’The militants came into the village of Barderi, near the University of Maiduguri on the outskirts of the city on Wednesday night, telling people to gather to hear them preach, but then turned the guns on the crowd.
The insurgents have used various tactics to gather residents together when they enter a village before attacking them.
In Tuesday’s attack on Attagara village in the remote Gwoza area of Borno state, people believed the gunmen – who were dressed in military uniforms – were soldiers who had come to provide protection after an earlier attack on Sunday.
One witness, quoted by the Associated Press, said the militants gathered people together in the centre of the village before they began “to fire continuously for a very long time until all that had gathered were dead”.
The local MP, Peter Biye, told the BBC that it was impossible to know exactly how many people had died because everyone who could do so, had fled into the nearby hills and there was no-one to count the bodies.
Attagara is one of six villages where a total of at least 200 people are believed to have been killed.
They are near the Mandara Mountains, a known Boko Haram hideout close to the border with Cameroon.
There are reports that Boko Haram’s jihadist flags are flying in several villages in Gwoza.
Who are Boko Haram?
- Founded in 2002
- Initially focused on opposing Western education – Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language
- Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state
- Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria – also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja
- Some three million people affected
- Declared terrorist group by US in 2013
Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
Why Nigeria has nor defeated Boko Haram
In the early hours of Thursday morning, another attack reportedly took place in Adamawa state, one of the three states under emergency rule.
Residents of the village of Madagali told the BBC Hausa Service that over three hours, suspected Boko Haram militants exchanged fire with security forces, burnt down the administrative buildings and a church, and killed two people.
After they had left, the air force bombed the surrounding area and three people died, residents added.
A new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council says 3,300 people have been killed by Boko Haram this year alone.