Up to 65 000 people in northeastern Nigeria are on the run after an attack by armed groups on Wednesday in which 8 people were killed and at least a dozen injured, the United Nations (UN) refugee agency said on Friday.

"Following the latest attack on Wednesday 14 April, the third in just seven days, up to 80 per cent of the town’s population —which includes the local community and internally displaced people— were forced to flee," Babar Baloch of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva briefing.

Local officials and a resident said on Wednesday that suspected Islamists attacked the northeast Nigerian border town of Damasak, killing at least eight people and causing hundreds to flee to neighbouring Niger.