JOS, Nigeria: At least 44 people have been killed in separate attacks in recent days in central Nigeria, a local government official said Tuesday, raising the toll in the latest raids in a region where herders and farmers often clash.
The attacks occurred in three villages between Friday and Monday, the chairman of the Gwer West local government area of Benue state, Ormin Torsar Victor, told AFP.
Motives for the violence were not clear, but Victor blamed the “coordinated attacks” on Fulani cattle herders.
Muslim ethnic Fulani nomadic herders have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, in Benue over access to land and resources.
“As of today morning I passed through Aondona, they were mentioning 14 bodies that have been recovered, including a pregnant woman and a boy of two,” he told AFP, adding that 30 others were killed in Ahume.
“Yesterday evening one person was killed, the number keeps increasing by the day. Even now I think some corpses have not yet been discovered,” he said, calling the attacks “systematic.”
The victims were either shot or stabbed, he said.
He said the “pregnant woman was macheted” while the two-year-old boy was “mutilated.”
A Catholic priest was shot and wounded while driving along the Markudi-Naka road, the church and the local government official said.
“They shot him and left him there thinking he was dead,” said Victor, adding that two passengers that were with him were abducted.
In a call for prayers for the wounded priest posted on Facebook, the church said he was shot by “suspected terrorist herdsmen.”
A resident of Aondona, Ruthie Dan Sam, told AFP late Monday that “20 people were killed here in Aondona.”
“Children of less than two are being killed. The worst sight is a baby macheted on its mouth,” she said.
She added that other people had been killed in neighboring villages, but said she had no figures.
Victor said he and other locals had buried five people, including a father and two of his sons killed in the village of Tewa Biana “very close to a military base.”
Benue state police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine confirmed two attacks in the area but said her office had received “no report of 20 people” killed.
She said that one raid resulted in the death of a policeman who had “repelled an attack” and that “three dead bodies were discovered.”
The attacks in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt often take on a religious or ethnic dimension.
Benue has been one of the states hit hardest by such violence between nomadic herders and farmers who blame herdsmen for destroying farmland with their cattle grazing.
