Nigeria attack forces thousands to flee- NEMA
Bigger than 6,000 folk maintain fled their properties in central Nigeria after a lethal attack by gunmen final week, emergency services acknowledged on Monday.
Gunmen attacked the village of Yelewata on Friday evening in a utter that has viewed a surge in violence amid clashes between Muslim Fulani herders and largely Christian farmers competing for land and sources.
“As of ultimate evening, displacement figures stood at 1,069 households, comprising 6,527 folk,” the National Emergency Management Company (NEMA) acknowledged in an announcement.
Bigger than half of of these displaced — many of whom are females and childhood — “are in pressing need of food, non-food objects, potable water and vital scientific supplies,” NEMA added.
The emergency company estimated that the attack had killed no lower than 100 folk.
Benue utter governor Hyacinth Alia urged a news conference slack Sunday that the death toll had reached 59 in Yelewata, even supposing residents acknowledged the toll would possibly perhaps maybe exceed 100.
Amnesty World also set aside the death toll at more than 100.
Benue is indubitably one of Nigeria’s three biggest food-producing states, primarily based totally on the National Bureau of Statistics.
Pope Leo XIV condemned the killings in the route of his Sunday prayer in Rome, calling it a “horrible massacre” by which largely displaced civilians were murdered with “outrageous cruelty”.
He acknowledged “rural Christian communities” in Benue were victims of incessant violence.
On Sunday, police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of residents protesting the killings.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu acknowledged in a Sunday evening assertion that he had “directed the security companies to act decisively and arrest perpetrators of these horrible acts on both side of the warfare and prosecute them”.
Attacks and fatal clashes in the utter are also usually motivated by spiritual and ethnic sentiment.
Two weeks ago, gunmen killed 25 folk in two assaults in Benue utter.
Bigger than 150 folk were killed in massacres all the procedure through Plateau and Benue states in April.
In a recent file, Amnesty World tallied 6,896 folk killed over the final two years in Benue.
