Armed groups have killed at least 160 people in central Nigeria in a series of attacks on villages, local government officials said on Monday.
The toll marked a sharp rise from the initial figure reported by the army on Sunday evening of just 16 dead in a region plagued for several years by religious and ethnic tensions.
“As many as 113 persons have been confirmed killed as Saturday hostilities persisted to early hours of Monday,” Bokkos local government head Monday Kassah said.
Photo: AFP
Military gangs, locally called “bandits,” launched “well-coordinated” attacks in “not fewer than 20 different communities” and torched houses, Kassah said.
“We found more than 300 wounded people” who were transferred to hospitals in Bokkos, Jos and Barkin Ladi, he said.
A provisional toll by the local Red Cross reported 104 deaths in 18 villages in the Bokkos region in Plateau State.
At least 50 people were also reported dead in several villages in the Barkin Ladi area, state parliament member Dickson Chollom said.
He condemned the attacks and called on security forces to act swiftly.
“We will not succumb to the tactics of these merchants of death. We are united in our pursuit of justice and lasting peace,” Chollom said.
The attacks which started in the Bokkos area spilled into neighboring Barkin Ladi where 30 people were found dead, local chairman Danjuma Dakil said.
State Governor Caleb Mutfwang on Sunday condemned the violence, calling it “barbaric, brutal and unjustified,”
“Proactive measures will be taken by the government to curb ongoing attacks against innocent civilians,” said Gyang Bere, the governor’s spokesperson.
Gunfire could still be heard on late on Monday afternoon, said a source from the region, which is on the dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and mainly Christian south.
Markus Amorudu, a resident of Mushu village, said people were sleeping when shots rang out.
“We were scared, because we weren’t expecting an attack. People hid, but the assailants captured many of us, some were killed, others wounded,” he said.
Amnesty International criticized the government in the wake of the attacks, writing on X that “the Nigerian authorities have been failing to end frequent deadly attacks on rural communities of Plateau state.”
Northwest and central Nigeria have been long terrorized by bandit militias operating from bases deep in forests and raiding villages to loot and kidnap residents for ransom.
Competition for natural resources between nomadic herders and farmers, intensified by rapid population growth and climate pressures, has also exacerbated social tensions and sparked violence.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS