KANO-Gunmen have attacked a rural village in northern central Nigeria killing dozens of people in the latest in a string of deadly assaults in the region, local government officials said Friday. The attack happened on Wednesday in Umogidi community, Benue State, where tit-for-tat clashes are common between nomadic herders and settled farmers competing for land and resources.
“The 46 casualties were from the bodies of victims found and retrieved. Many people are still missing, so the number of those killed may be higher,” Paul Hemba, security adviser to Benue State governor, told AFP. He blamed herdsmen who he said had been attacking local communities over the last month.
“Soldiers have been dispatched to the area, so the situation is a bit calm now.”
The motive for the attack was not clear but Benue has been one of the hardest hit by intercommunal clashes between farmers and ethnic Fulani herders accused of destroying farmland with their cattle grazing.
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Baba Usman Ngelzarma, chairman of the Myetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), a union of Fulani herders, warned against blaming herders without investigation.