New Telegraph

Herdsmen attack Benue communities, kill four

Herdsmen armed with sophisticated weapons on Sunday night launched attacks on two wards in Gwer-West Local Government Area of Benue State and killed four people while one person was declared missing.

The killing came barely two weeks after armed men invaded the local government and killed 19 people.

 

The latest attacks were launched simultaneously on Tse-Shishim village and Tse- Iber around Jimba and Ahumen settlement located along Makurdi- Naka-Ankpa and Mbaatan, Kunav both in Saghev-Ukusu and Sengev council wards of the local government.

Two survivors of the attack said they had gone to their villages to take some food for their families taking refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps when the armed Fulani, on sighting them, started pursuing them with AK47 guns and cutlasses.

 

According to them, they managed to escape being murdered. They, however, said the attackers killed four people, Terhemba Shishim, Teryila Agbe, Yorloko Adumu and Mne Iorhemen, while they took away another man, Iorhemen Terhemen, along with his motorcycle.

 

Sources from the community told the New Telegraph that security operatives, on receiving the report, combed the villages but did not find the victims’ bodies.

 

However, an indigene of the area, Mr. Francis Ugbede, said the victims’ bodies were mutilated. He added that youths found decomposing bodies of some of the victims which were deposited at a private mortuary at Agagbe in the local government.

 

The Chairman of Gwer-West Local Government Area, Mrs. Grace Igbabon, could not be reached for comments, but the local government’s Security Officer, Mr. Fred Awarga, confirmed the attacks.

 

Awarga said that the killer herders who retreated during the bombardment of their hideouts by troops of the Operation Whirl-Stroke, returned later and attacked villagers returning from their farms.

 

The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Catherine Sewuese Anene, confirmed the incident.

 

 

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