Mortal clashes between nomads and farmers have recently multiplied in the states of Benue and Plateau.
According to reports, at least 17 people killed bones as nomadic shepherds of suspended cattle carried out twin attacks in the state of the center of Benue de Nigeria.
Police spokeswoman Anene Sewuese, Catherine, said in a statement on Friday that “a large number of suspicious militias had invaded” a region of the state of Benue during the night. The attack occurred in the midst of a resurgence of mortal clashes between shepherds and farmers, a conflict that has killed hundreds of recent years.
Security forces were deployed and, like the assailants “they were being repelled in the early hours of today, they sporadically fired the unsuspecting farmers” killing five farmers in the Benue area in the Ukum area.
Police said a second place of attack of attack in the logo, about 70 km from the first incident area.
“Unfortunately, a simultaneous attack was carried out without suspecting” in a neighboring town, where 12 people were killed before the police arrived, police spokesman said.
The attacks occurred only two days after 11 people were killed in the Otukpo area of Benue, and just a week after armed men attacked villages and killed more than 50 people in the neighboring state of Plateau.
Since 2019, confrontations between nomadic livestock shepherds and agricultural communities have killed more than 500 people in the region and have forced 2.2 million to leave their homes, according to the SBM Intelligence research firm.
The clashes, mainly between the Muslim shepherds of Fulani and the Christian farmers of the ethnic groups of Berom and Irigwe, are often painted as ethnorigious.
However, analysts have said that climate change and the shortage of pastoral lands face farmers and shepherds with each other, irrepitive to faith.
The conflict has interrupted the food supplies of Nigeria in northern Nigeria, a significant agricultural area.