Death toll rises to 155 from attacks by armed individuals in Nigeria

The death toll from attacks by armed individuals carried out from last Saturday night to Monday in the state of Plateau, in central Nigeria, has increased from 113 to 155, local authorities reported.

“Our people are still in the countryside looking for the missing. “We recovered more than 20 bodies” this Tuesday, said the president of the local government of the Bokkos territory, Monday Kassa, in statements reported by local media this Wednesday. “The number of deaths (confirmed) by the local government is now 125,” he added.

For his part, the president of the local government of Barkin Ladi, Danjuma Dakil, reported the death of at least 30 people in this territory, after the discovery of more bodies, and more than 1,000 injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital.

The NGO Amnesty International (AI) already indicated this Tuesday in a statement that the attacks had left more than 140 dead and called for an investigation into the “inexcusable security errors that allowed this horrible massacre.” “Our investigation has discovered that the gunmen were killing and destroying for more than 48 hours, moving from one town to another,” he added.

Ethnic and religious tensions

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday condemned the attack and ordered the country's security agencies “to immediately intervene, search every part of the area and arrest those responsible for these atrocities.” The president also called for “the immediate mobilization of relief resources for the surviving victims of these primitive and cruel attacks.”

Plateau lies on the dividing line between Nigeria's largely Muslim north and Christian south, and has endured ethnic and religious tensions for years. In that state, clashes are common between communities of farmers, mainly Christian, and herders of the Fulani people, mainly Muslim, due to differences over the use of the land and the scarce natural resources available.

In addition, some Nigerian states – especially in the center and northwest – suffer incessant attacks by “bandits”, a term used in the country to name criminal gangs that commit mass assaults and kidnappings to obtain large ransoms and to whom the authorities usually branded as “terrorists.”