86 killed in Nigeria as farmers, herders clash
Eighty six people have been killed in an attack by suspected nomadic herders against farming communities in restive central Nigeria, police said.
The discovery in the Barikin Ladi area of Plateau state came after days of violence apparently sparked by an attack by ethnic Berom farmers on Fulani herders on Thursday, AFP reported on Monday.
State police commissioner Undie Adie said a search of Berom villages in the area following clashes on Saturday found “86 persons altogether were killed”.
Adie told reporters six people were also injured and 50 houses razed. Bodies of those who died have been released to their families, he added.
The deaths are the latest in a long-running battle for land and resources that is putting President Muhammadu Buhari under pressure as elections approach next year.
The violence – fueled by ethnic, religious and political allegiances – has killed thousands over several decades.
Analysts believe it could become Nigeria’s biggest security concern, eclipsing Boko Haram’s insurgency that has left at least 20,000 dead since 2009.
The Plateau state government said it had imposed restrictions on movements in the Riyom, Barikin Ladi and Jos South areas “to avert a breakdown of law and order”.
On Sunday, ethnic Berom youths set up barricades on the Jos-abuja highway and attacked motorists who looked “Fulani and Muslim”, according to those who escaped the violence.
Plateau state police spokesman Tyopev Terna and Major Adam Umar, from the military taskforce in the state capital, Jos, confirmed the blockade and vandalism to several cars.
There were no official reports of deaths but Baba Bala, who escaped the violence on the road, said at least six people were killed.
“I escaped with a smashed windscreen and dents on my car. I saw six dead bodies and several damaged cars,” he added.
Plateau state governor Simon Lalong called for calm.
“Operational plans are currently being put in place to secure the affected communities and fish out perpetrators of these crimes,” he said.
“While we pray for God’s guidance through this difficult time, we will do everything humanly possible to secure our state immediately.”
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said Monday it plans to create a secondary currency market to help ease tensions that plunged the rial against the US dollar to a record low.
CBI Governor Valiollah Seif told reporters on Monday that the parallel currency market would be dedicated to selling US dollars to importers of “essential goods” by exporters of non-oil products such as petrochemicals.
Seif said the rate of the dollars would be the same as officially determined by the CBI. News agencies reported that the secondary currency market would be formed within the next week.
The Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Monday, amid fears of returning US sanctions after President Donald Trump in May withdrew from a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian rial dropped to 90,000 to the dollar on the country’s black market, despite government attempts to control the currency rate.
The fall of the national currency has provoked a public outcry over the quick rise of prices of imported consumer goods.
Grand Bazaar in calm
A group of businesspeople at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar shut down their businesses on Monday in protest.
Ahmad Karimi Esfahani, the secretary general of the Islamic Society of Tehran Guilds and Bazaar, said the protesters “chanted economic slogans in protest at the existing [economic] conditions, as a result of which a large group of other businesses were shut down on security grounds and to prevent possible robberies.”
He added that the situation in Tehran Grand Bazaar is calm now and the shop owners are opening their shops to resume activities, but this does not mean that their rightful demands have been met.
“We had repeatedly warned the government that it must shore up its economic team, but now we have come to the conclusion that this team must change,” Esfahani said.
Such protests are a warning to the government, the official said, expressing hope that the government would pay attention to them.
The government of President Hassan Rouhani has struggled to curb the economic problems. A government-set exchange rate of 42,000 rials to $1 has quickly been surpassed in the black market.
Fars news agency reported on a protest in front of the parliament on Monday, which it described as shopkeepers asking “lawmakers to stop rising prices.”
Online videos showed police confronting protesters, with security forces firing tear gas at them and charging into the crowd.
Videos posted to social media showed protesters at the bazaar heckling shopkeepers who refused to close, shouting in Farsi: “Coward!”
Also on Sunday, merchants at the mobile phone shopping centers Aladdin and Charsou in central Tehran protested against the rapid depreciation of the rial by shutting down their shops.
A video posted on social media showed protesters marching and chanting “strike, strike!” The footage could not be authenticated independently by Reuters.
Hours later, Information and Communications Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-jahromi said on Twitter that he visited the protesting merchants.
“I will try to help provide hard currency for (mobile) equipment (imports),” Azari-jahromi wrote, adding: “The merchants’ activity has now gone back to normal.”
Some of the US sanctions against Iran take effect after a 90-day “wind-down” period ending on Aug. 6, and the rest, most notably on the petroleum sector, after a 180-day “winddown” period ending on Nov. 4.
The sanctions would include a universal ban on Iran over buying or acquiring US dollars as well as restrictions over purchases of crude oil from the country and investing in its oil sector projects.
Fighting US economic war
Iran’s First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri on Sunday called on all Iranians to close ranks and counter a “serious economic war” launched by the United States against the Islamic Republic.
“The Americans, in their opinion, have begun a serious war against our country, thinking they can succeed in crippling our economy so that Iran, in the words of the US president, would be forced back to the negotiating table,” Jahangiri said.
“Under the current circumstances, all state officials, the elite, political currents and all Iranian people are required to unite against the big plot, which has started, and help [the country] weather these conditions with dignity.”
Press TV, Reuters, and AP contributed this story.