At least 23 people were killed by gunmen in attacks in Nigeria’s Benue State, with many others injured, an official said Sunday.
Ray Anumve, an official of the Kwande Local Government Area, said in an interview with a local newspaper that Fulani herdsmen, who are engaged in livestock farming, launched attacks on villages in the region.
Anumve confirmed that 23 people were killed, including children. He said that several homes were also set on fire during the assaults and the attackers looted the villagers' food supplies.
People in North Central Nigeria are urgently calling for government intervention to end the ongoing attacks on farming communities. Over 100 people have been killed in the past week, with the latest attack occurring on Monday in Zike, a farming village in the Bassa local government area of Plateau Province. Samson Omale reports from Jos, Nigeria.
There have been periodic violent clashes between Fulani herders and agricultural communities in Benue.
According to AFP, a Red Cross officer said that there were four separate attacks in four villages on Saturday night.
“Reports from the field have confirmed the killings of at least 23 people from different attacks,” Red Cross secretary in Benue state Anthony Abah told AFP.
Eight people were killed in Ukum, nine in nearby Logo, three each in Guma and Kwande, he said, citing data from the organisation’s field disaster officers. Several others were wounded, he added.
A police spokeswoman said she was unaware of the attacks. Cephas Kangeh, a retired general manager with a state electricity company who recently relocated to his home village near one of the affected areas told AFP he had heard of three killings, including a couple ambushed while riding a motorcycle which “was taken away by the herdsmen”. Chinese operators are mining gold in the area, he said.
“The attacks did not take place near the mining sites,” said Kangeh. “However, one is puzzled as to why indigenous people are always attacked, maimed... yet there has never been a single case of attack on the Chinese miners who are operating in these areas.”
Some of the latest attacks were staged in areas previously targeted by attacks slightly over a month ago, which left at least 56 dead. With many herders belonging to the Muslim Fulani ethnic group, and many farmers Christian, the attacks in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt often take on a religious or ethnic dimension.
Two attacks by unidentified gunmen earlier in April in neighbouring Plateau state left more than 100 people dead. Across the wider Middle Belt, including in Benue, land used by farmers and herders is coming under stress from climate change and human expansion, sparking deadly competition for increasingly limited space.
