Bandits Kill Seven In Benue IDPs Camp As Gov Ortom Cries To Buhari To Stop Killings
Deadly ethnic clashes between nomadic herders and local farmers over land, grazing and water have shaken Nigeria’s Middle Belt region for years
LAGOS APRIL 29TH (NEWSRANGERS)-Gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen early Tuesday attacked an internally displaced people’s camp in central Nigeria’s Benue state, killing seven and injuring nine others, the local state governor said.
Benue is part of Nigeria’s Middle Belt region which has been troubled by deadly clashes between nomadic herders and local farmers over land, grazing and water for years.
The conflict is an additional challenge for the nation’s security forces who are battling on several fronts — a more than decade-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast, criminal kidnap gangs in the northwest and a separatist militia in the southeast.
“Many are in the hospital apart from the seven that died in the attack on the IDPs camp,” said Benue Governor Samuel Ortom when he visited the camp at the outskirts of Makurdi, the state capital on Tuesday.
He said the dawn attack on the camp housing 21,000 people displaced as a result of previous herder-farmer clashes was “inhuman, barbaric and unacceptable.”
Although it was not immediately clear the reason for the latest attack, tensions have been on the rise since the government enacted a law banning open grazing of cattle in the state.
Ortom appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the frequent killings in the state.
“I want to say that we are being overstretched. Our patience and preaching of rule of law is being overstretched. You can see that the people are fed up. Mr. President must rise up,” he said
He said “if the federal government had taken the issue of militia herders seriously, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level.”
The governor has often accused Buhari, himself a northern Fulani Muslim, of taking a soft approach to the herder issue.
He said that in the last two weeks, over 70 people had been killed in various parts of the state.
Emmanuel Shior of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) called for assistance for the displaced.
“That camp is home to over 21,000 IDPs who reside in the camp and the host community. We are in dire need of assistance and aid from both local and international organisations,” he said.
He also called for a security beef-up in and around the IDPs camps to prevent future attacks.
Short URL: https://newsrangers.com/?p=69093
Posted by News Rangers
on Apr 29 2021. Filed under National.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
