DAKAR, Senegal — The death toll from an attack by gunmen over the weekend in north-central Nigeria has climbed to 150, survivors said Monday as the villagers were still digging through burned homes, counting their dead and looking for dozens of people still missing.
Assailants stormed Benue state’s Yelewata community late on Friday night, opening fire on villagers who were asleep and setting their homes ablaze, survivors and the local farmers union said. Many of those killed were sheltering in a local market after fleeing violence in other parts of the state.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killings, but such attacks are common in Nigeria’s northern region where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water. The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms.
The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, whose government has fallen short of expectations in ending the country’s deadly security crises, described the Benue attack as “senseless bloodletting” while his office said he would visit the stricken community on Wednesday.
Titus Tsegba, who lost his wife and four of his children in the attack, said more than 20 bodies were recovered on Monday. The initial death toll was reported to be 100 on Saturday.
His wife and children — the youngest 8 and the oldest 27 — were “burned into ashes beyond recognition,” he told The Associated Press, adding that he survived because he was sleeping in another part of the community.
“Everything is gone,” he said.
Benue Deputy Gov. Sam Ode said he suspected the perpetrators were herdsmen. Ode and the survivors spoke to the AP by phone.
The gunmen made it difficult for many to flee after surrounding the Yelewata community, which is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) away from the state capital of Makurdi, said Jacob Psokaa, who lost his 55-year-old father in the attack.
“They were coming from different sides at the same moment … it was sporadic shooting,” Psokaa said. “The situation is very bad now with many people in the ground … your people leaving you suddenly.”
The gunmen also burned food stores in the local market, razing a year’s harvest that included rice and yam, staple food mainly exported from Benue to other parts of Nigeria.
“Enough is enough!” said Tinubu, the president. “I have directed the security agencies to act decisively, arrest perpetrators of these evil acts on all sides of the conflict, and prosecute them.”
