JOS (Nigeria), April 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A fresh bout of suspected intercommunal violence in Nigeria’s north-central Plateau state earlier this week has killed more than 40 people, officials said.
Attackers struck multiple villages in the religiously and ethnically mixed state, where land disputes between Muslim Fulani herders and mostly Christian farmers often descend into deadly violence.
As of Friday morning, Bokkos local government official Farmasum Fuddang said 48 bodies had been recovered, sharply revising the reported toll of 10.
“Yesterday alone we made a mass burial of more than 30 people,” Fuddang said.
A Red Cross official said that the toll “surpassed 40, mostly women and children.”
Though millions of Nigerians of different backgrounds live side by side, intercommunal violence often flares in the Plateau state.
Even urban centres, where Muslims and Christians live side by side, have seen violence sparked by smaller disputes devolve into massacres along community lines.
Fuddang told reporters that the violence was the result of “ethnic and religious cleansing” by attackers “speaking the Fulani dialect”.
As populations have grown, so has the amount of land farmers use, while grazing routes have come under stress from climate change. Land grabbing, political tensions and illegal mining further push people into conflict.
An attack on the village of Ruwi at the end of March, under similar circumstances to this week’s, left 10 dead.
Tensions have soared in the state since about 200 people were killed at Christmas 2023 during a bloody attack on a majority Christian village.
In May last year, around 40 people were killed and homes torched in the town of Wase. — NNN-AGENCIES
