BOKKOS | At least 113 people were killed in attacks by armed groups in several villages in Plateau state in central Nigeria between Saturday evening and Monday, local authorities said on Monday.
“The hostilities that began on Saturday continued on Monday morning,” Monday Kassah, president of the governing council of Bokkos, a constituency in this region that has been plagued by religious and ethnic tensions for several years, told AFP.
“At least 113 bodies have been found,” he added, while the death toll reported by the army on Sunday evening stood at 16.
And “more than 300 people” were injured and transferred to hospitals in Bokkos, Jos and Barkin Ladi, Kassah said on Monday.
Armed groups, referred to locally as “bandits,” attacked “no fewer than 20 villages” between Saturday evening and Monday morning, he said, stressing that “the attacks were well coordinated.”
The latter began in Bokkos district and then spread to neighboring Barkin Ladi district, where “30 dead were found,” according to Danjuma Dakil, its president.
On Sunday, Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang described the armed action as “barbaric, brutal and unjustified.”
“The government will take proactive measures to curb the ongoing attacks on innocent citizens,” said Gyang Bere, the governor’s spokesman.
According to a local source, gunshots could still be heard late Sunday afternoon.
The NGO Amnesty International responded to this violence in its X account, judging that “the Nigerian authorities have consistently failed in their attempts to put an end to these frequent attacks in Plateau State.”
The population of Nigeria's northwest and central regions lives in fear of attacks by jihadist groups and criminal gangs who plunder villages and kill or kidnap their residents.