At least Six persons have been confirmed dead, with many others injured, after armed Fulani herdsmen attacked Abagena community housing Internally Displaced Persons camp in Makurdi Local government Area of Benue State.
Although the assailants did not enter the Internally Displaced Persons camp its host community housing a huge percentage of the IDPs was badly affected spreading panic within and outside the camp.
We gathered that angry youths, who were enraged by the killings, blocked the Makurdi-Lafia Federal highway causing gridlock and tension amongst travellers who were barred from passing
Reacting, the State Governor, Samuel Ortom in a statement, described the attack on the IDPs camp as inhuman, barbaric and unacceptable.
The Governor called on President Muhammadu Buhari to live up to his responsibility of protecting Nigerians.
He lamented that in the last two weeks, over seventy persons had been killed in Makurdi Local Government alone, while various communities across Benue were suffering from same militia herdsmen.
Ortom also called for urgent action against the activities of militia herdsmen across the country.
“If the Federal Government had taken the issue of militia herders seriously, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level,” he said.
The State Governor Samuel Ortom however visited the scene and appealed to the youth to exercise restraint open up the road to commuters and allow him take the recovered bodies to the mortuary.
He vowed to rather die than preside over dead bodies, insisting that the killings are one too many and must be stopped forthwith.
