Jos — Nigerian police on Monday sent reinforcements to the central state of Plateau after violence between herders and farmers left 86 dead, with indications more people lost their lives.
The head of the federal police, Ibrahim Idris, said a special intervention force had been sent “to restore lasting peace”.
“The intervention is to put an end to the crisis,” he said, adding the reinforcements included two surveillance helicopters, counterterrorism and intelligence cells. Plateau state imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the affected areas on Sunday as angry youths from ethnic Berom farming communities attacked motorists on the main Jos to Abuja road.
One motorist who escaped the violence said he saw six dead bodies and the youths were targeting anyone who looked “Fulani and Muslim”, the ethnic group of the herders.
The unrest was sparked after an apparent reprisal attack blamed on nomadic Fulani herders against Berom farmers on Saturday that police said left 86 dead. The authorities in Nigeria have previously downplayed death tolls and local media on Monday quoted several local Berom groups saying more than 100 people were killed.
One Christian charity based in the Plateau state capital Jos, the Stefanus Foundation, put the death toll from attacks on six villages at 169.
There was no independent verification of the figures.
Ndi Kato, a campaigner for indigenous people in the central states, said people were angry and security had to be improved. “We are losing people at war levels now,” she said, calling for civilian militia to be set up in the restive region.
The violence will put further pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been accused of failing to stop clashes between the two groups in the so-called “Middle Belt”.
AFP
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