35 feared killed in fresh Plateau attacks
About 35 people were feared killed in separate attacks on villages in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State between Sunday afternoon and the early hours of yesterday.
The first attack was said to have taken place at 3pm Sunday around Baju village where about six Fulani people were allegedly killed.
The second attack was said to have been meted on the internally displaced persons who were mostly women and children inside a primary school at Nkiedonwhro village of Irigwe Chiefdom where 29 people were allegedly killed in the morning of yesterday.
The Irigwe community in a press conference by its National President, Hon. Sunday Abdu, yesterday said it was laughable that no Fulani herder was arrested “despite the discovery of a handset” by security personnel that gave away the owner.
He said Government must stop the killings, stressing that a humanitarian situation loomed in their land.
Reacting also yesterday, the Fulani headers refuted the allegation that they killed 29 Irigwe people. The Chairman, Bassa Local Government chapter of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Alhaji Umar Sangare, said they did not kill anybody.
He said when their six children were killed and beheaded on Sunday afternoon by the Irigwe community at Baju village, they reported it to the Sector 6 Commander of the Operation Safe Haven (OPSH) as well as the DPO in charge of Bassa who went with them to bury the corpses.
In its reaction to the attacks, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) expressed regret about the apparent helplessness of the authorities.
The NUJ said in a statement signed by its National Secretary, Shuaibu Usman Leman, “This ugly development remains alarming as the security intervention on the Plateau appears incapable of delivering the much-anticipated respite… We are afraid that the Federal Government appears either unwilling or incapable of protecting its citizens. It is therefore important for the Federal Government to quickly reappraise the security situation on the Plateau with a view to coming out with more pragmatic measures to check these incessant killings.”
The Plateau Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Tyopev Terna, confirmed the attacks but could not give casualty figures. “The commissioner of Police has gone to the place. We can only address the press when he is back,” Terna said.
And the Plateau State Government said it would not relent in its current renewed efforts at identifying and prosecuting all those behind the attacks, as the attackers were taking the state back “to the dark days of violent conflicts.”
In a statement signed by the Director of Press and Public Affairs, Samuel Emmanuel Nanle, the government called on all the residents of the areas of conflicts in Bassa and the surrounding border villages to volunteer information that could lead to the apprehension of “all the criminals behind the sudden resurgence of deadly attacks.”