Special police force sent in to quell Nigeria’s deadly cattle wars

NIGERIA is to launch a major security operation after a wave of retaliatory violence between Christians and Muslims claimed as many as 169 lives in the centre of the country.

A curfew was declared in Plateau State in an attempt to end one of the deadliest episodes of an increasingly bloody conflict between Muslim cattle herders and Christian farmers that has swept large parts of Africa’s most populous country. With fears mounting that Nigeria is slipping into an inter-communal war, Muhammadu Buhari, the country’s president, condemned the latest bloodshed as “deeply unfortunate.”

Ibrahim Idris, his police chief, announced the deployment of a special force in Plateau. “The intervention is to put an end to the violence,” he said.

Police officials said the latest round of clashes erupted on Thursday when Christian farmers from Plateau’s native Berom tribe killed five Muslim Fulani cattle herders they accused of trespassing on their land.

The Fulani, who come mainly from northern Nigeria, retaliated with a wave of attacks on six villages in the Barkin Ladi region of Plateau State. In one incident, the two young children of a clergyman were hacked to death, according to a local Christian rights group.

Officials in the state put the death toll at 120, while some activists said that 169 had died. Nigeria’s police said 86 people had been killed.

The violence has been attributed to many factors. More frequent droughts, blamed on global warming, have driven Fulani herdsmen further afield in search of pasture. The conflict is increasingly being framed in Nigeria as a religious one, with Christians accusing the Fulani of mounting an Islamist takeover.