No fewer than 15 persons, including women and children, are said to be missing after armed men suspected to be vigilante personnel attacked an 18-seater bus conveying passengers from Zaki/Biam in Benue State to Maihura in Bali Local Government Area of Taraba State on Tuesday.
It was gathered that the incident happened at Gankwe village along the Donga- Mararaban-Baissa road in the Donga Local Government Area of the state.
Narrating the incident to journalists on the phone, the driver of the bus, Mr. Mpuuga Mbaave, who escaped death by the whiskers with machete cut wounds, said the armed men in vigilante uniform attacked his bus.
“I loaded 18 passengers from Zaki/Biam in Benue State to Maihura in Taraba state, and on our way close to Mararaba, I saw many people in Vigilante uniform. I suspected something was wrong, so I parked the vehicle.
“One of the villagers who was passing by told me that I should proceed. According to him, two members of the Vigilante personnel were killed by kidnappers, and the vigilante came to carry their corpses.
“As I moved closer, some of the Vigilante personnel started shouting, ‘kill all of them,’ kill all of them,’ it’s their people (Tiv) that killed our members, and they started attacking the passengers and cutting them with machetes,
“They ordered the passengers out of the bus, forced them to lie facedown. I refused to come down, but when I discovered that it was getting out of hand, I decided to jump out of the bus and ran away. My conductor too followed me. They came after us cutting us with a machete, but we ran for our dear lives,” he narrated.
Confirming the development, the Chairman of Doonga Local Government Council, Hon. Ezra Voka, said he was already in the nearby forest searching for the missing persons.
“Please my friend, I am already in the bush in search of the missing people. We cannot talk much now till when I get more information from here,” he said.
