At least 154 people were killed in Sunday's attack by gunmen on villages in Nigeria's northern Plateau state, more than three times the initial count, two community leaders said.

Armed gangs in northwestern Nigeria have terrorised villagers for years through kidnappings for ransom, but they have become more brutal, killing and pillaging communities where state security agents are rarely seen.

Ya'u Abubakar, a senior councillor of Garga rural district in the Kanem local government area of Plateau told Reuters that the gunmen arrived on motorbikes and started shooting sporadically.

Houses and shops were burnt to the ground and some people who tried to hide in nearby bushes were pursued and shot and their bodies were discovered on Tuesday, he said.

Abubakar said there were mass burials as shocked communities tried to come to grips with the violent attack.

“All in all we have in our records (the number) of those killed at 154, including those found in bushes,” Abubakar said by phone.

Such attacks are not common in Plateau.

But the state shares a border with Kaduna state, where suspected bandits - a loose term for gangs of outlaws carrying out robberies and kidnappings - blew up train tracks, killed eight people and kidnapped dozens last month.

Alhaji Wada, a Garga community leader said soldiers had been deployed to secure the area and were pursuing the gunmen.

“They should not be spared or forgiven,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Telephone services are patchy in Nigeria's rural hinterlands, making it difficult for communities to call in help from security forces, whose resources are stretched due to an Islamist insurgency in the northeast of the country.

Reuters