Armed groups called “bandits” by local authorities attacked and burned several villages in the center of the country. Nearly 160 people were killed and more than 300 were injured and taken to area hospitals.
Nearly 160 people were killed in attacks by armed groups between Saturday evening and Monday in several villages in Plateau State, in central Nigeria, local authorities announced Monday.
“The hostilities that began on Saturday continued Monday morning,” Monday Kassah, president of the government council of Bokkos, a constituency located in this region that has been plagued by religious and ethnic tensions for several years, told AFP. He added: “At least 113 bodies have been found.”
And, “more than 300 people” were injured and transferred to hospitals in Bokkos, Jos and Barkin Ladi, said Monday Kassah.
A first provisional report from the local Red Cross sent to AFP on Monday evening reported 104 deaths in 18 villages in the Bokkos region.
Armed groups, whose members are locally described as “bandits”, attacked “no less than 20 villages”, burning down numerous houses, between Saturday evening and Monday morning, said Mr. Kassah, according to whom “the attacks were well contact details”.
In addition to these 113 deaths in the Bokkos constituency, there are “at least 50 people killed” in four villages in the neighboring Barkin Ladi constituency, according to Dickson Chollom, an elected official in the local assembly.
Elected officials condemn the “Merchants of Death”
“We will not succumb to the methods of these merchants of death, we are united in our desire for peace and justice,” he told AFP.
“We were sleeping at night when, suddenly, gunshots rang out. We were afraid, we did not expect an attack,” Markus Amorudu, a resident of the village of Mushu, who was targeted, told AFP on Sunday. during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
“People hid but the attackers captured many of us, some were killed, others were injured,” he added.
On Sunday, the governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang, described the armed action as “barbaric, brutal and unjustified”.
“Proactive measures will be taken by the government to curb the ongoing attacks against innocent citizens,” promised Gyang Bere, the governor’s spokesperson.
Pistol fire could still be heard late Monday afternoon, a local source said, contradicting army statements that “the situation was brought under control” on Sunday.
An NGO castigates local authorities
The NGO Amnesty International reacted to this violence on its X account, judging that “the Nigerian authorities have always failed in their attempts to put an end to these frequent attacks in Plateau State”.
The populations of the northwestern and central regions of Nigeria live in terror of attacks by jihadist groups and criminal gangs who pillage villages and kill or kidnap their inhabitants.
For years, a bitter competition has raged between transhumant herders and sedentary farmers for natural resources in central and north-western Nigeria, with the latter accusing the former of ransacking their land with their livestock.
Aggravated by climate change and the demographic explosion in this country of 215 million inhabitants, sporadic violence has led to a serious security crisis, between attacks by heavily armed bandits and endless reprisals between communities, but also humanitarian.
The new Nigerian president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who took office last May, has made the fight against insecurity one of the priorities of his mandate.