At least seven worshipers were killed inside an Islamic mosque where a group of gunmen attacked in Kaduna state of Nigeria (northwest), the police announced on Saturday.

The attack in the remote village of Saya, in Ikara district of the state, took place on Friday night as worshipers had gathered to pray, according to Mansoor Haruna, a police spokesman in Kaduna.

Two other people who were injured were taken to a hospital, the spokesman added.

A resident of the village explained to the Reuters news agency that five worshipers were killed inside the place of worship and two others outside it.

Northwest and central Nigeria have for about a decade been plagued by back-to-back attacks by gangs of thugs, who authorities generally call “bandits”: raiding isolated villages, killing, looting, kidnapping residents for ransom and setting houses on fire. In some areas where these gangs operate, road travel is not safe, not even agricultural activities.

The attacks by the thugs further complicate the situation for Nigeria’s security forces, which are simultaneously called upon to deal with a decade-long jihadist insurgency in the north-east of the country and separatist activity in the south.