No fewer than ten persons have been confirmed killed by suspected herdsmen in Bornon Kurkur community, Bali Local Government Area of Taraba State.
Confirming the incident to Channels Television on Sunday via a telephone call, the Police Public Relations Officer, David Misal, said the attack occurred today, adding that the situation has been brought under control.
According to him, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Ahmed Azare, has ordered for deployment of more hands to comb the area as well as protect the victims.
In a related development, six persons have been found dead between Jatau Kungana and Gazabu communities of the Bali local government area.
This is according to the Chairman of the local government, Mahmud Musa, who spoke to Channels Television during an interview.
Musa said the fracas started in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State which shares a boundary with Taraba State.
He said some Fulani herdsmen were chased from the axis and ran into Bali local government where they were partially resisted and the fight escalated which led to the death of six persons in the axis.
Musa added that he has summoned the leadership of both Fulani herdsmen and the Tivs tribe to talk to their subjects and put the situation under control.
He insisted that calm has been restored and security agencies are manning the nooks and crannies of the local government to avert any uprising and asked those using the opportunity to destroy or steal from houses to desist from such act.
Taraba state in Northeast Nigeria has been in the news lately for one communal crisis or the other.
On April 15, gunmen suspected to be bandits killed four people in separate attacks in the Wukari local government area of the state.
The gunmen in their number first attacked Tor-larshager a suburb community of Wukari local government area killing a 70-year-old man and setting ablaze his residential apartment at about 9:00 PM on Wednesday.
At about 2:00 am on Thursday the gunmen struck again at Rafinkada village killing three persons.
The attack is coming barely one week after bandits killed three farmers in Assa village of Wukari local government area on the 7th of April and two Mobile police officers also killed at a checkpoint in Takum LGA on the 6th of April in Taraba state.
Observation by Channels Television indicates that the farmers vs herders and farmers vs farmers crisis always come to be at the beginning of each year’s rainy season.
These crises have also in one way or the other devalued the peace agreement entered into by the two governors of Taraba and Benue States as well as the warring tribes to sheath their swords and allow peace reign.
4 die in Benue
Four persons were weekend reportedly killed by suspected armed herders in Yelwata community of Guma Local Government Area of Benue state.
The death of the youths who were said to have been killed in their farms in the community bordering Nasarawa state triggered mass protests by youths of the area who recovered their corpses from the farm and barricaded the busy Makurdi-Lafia road.
It was gathered that efforts by security personnel to disperse the angry youths led to the death of another who was hit by a stray bullet fired from a yet to be identified security personnel.
Confirming the development, Chairman of Guma Local Government, Mr. Caleb Abah, explained that three of the victims were killed on the farm by the armed herdsmen while a stray bullet killed another during the protest that trailed the armed herders’ invasion.
According to the Chairman “unfortunately in an attempt to disperse the angry youths who were protesting the killing, there was a shot by the security agencies and one of the protesters was hit and killed.
“But as we speak right now, calm has been restored to the area and we are already making arrangements for the dead to be buried,” he said.
The Chairman also stated that the timely intervention of Governor Samuel Ortom who quickly mobilized some top government functionaries to the troubled area to calm frayed nerves helped in checking an escalation of the crisis especially after the death of one of the protesters.
“It was that intervention by the Governor that saved what would have been a bloody weekend in Benue especially after it was realized that one of the protesters had been hit and killed by a stray bullet allegedly fired by the security personnel to disperse them,” he said.
Efforts to reach the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Deputy Superintendent, DSP, Catherine Anene was unsuccessful.
