A curfew was set on Sunday in an area in central Nigeria after further attacks between communities that killed at least nine people, the authorities said.
The district of Mangu, in the Plateau State, has been in the grip of serious violence for two months between farming communities and pastoralists who have killed more than 200 people.
On Sunday, armed men again attacked several villages in the district, killing at least nine people in a “retaliatory” attack, regional military spokesman James Oya told AFP. The murder toll was confirmed by a community official, Jerry Datim. “So far, we have found nine bodies, we continue to search because some people are still missing,” he told AFP.
Two days earlier, on Friday, eight ranching villages were attacked, where 15 people were killed, Nuru Abdullahi, president of the Miyyeti Allah Livestock Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), told AFP. Mr. Abdullahi blamed the attacks on a local self-defence militia set up by the Plateau authorities, known as “Operation Rainbow”.
The coordinator of this paramilitary group, Sitdang Mungak, denied the accusations, telling AFP that none of the AFP agents were involved in the violence. For his part, the army spokesman, Mr. Oya, indicated that he was still in the process of confirming the details of this attack, without confirming it. To counter this violent outburst, the governor of the State of Plateau, Caleb Mutfwang, imposed a total ban on movement in the area.
Travel in the Mangu district “has been prohibited until further notice, with the exception of security personnel and persons performing essential functions,” said Gyang Bere, spokesman for the Governor of Plateau State, in a statement.
The regions of north-west and central Nigeria are regularly the scene of deadly tensions and conflicts around the exploitation of land and water resources between communities of farmers and pastoralists, worsened in recent years by demographic pressure and climate change.
The chain of murders followed by reprisals in the region has led to a wider crime with gangs carrying out targeted expeditions to villages, where they kill inhabitants by the dozens, carry out looting and kidnappings for ransom. These abuses are one of the many security challenges facing President Bola Tinubu as head of Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy.
