Armed men suspected to be Fulani herdsmen militia have killed no fewer than 32 persons, sacked Gbajimba, the headquarters of Guma local government area in Benue state.
The armed men, who came in large numbers yesterday as confirmed by some survivors, invaded Gbajimba by 12 noon and took the people unaware, sacked the town, killing randomly.
When our correspondent visited the Benue Sate University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH), Chairman of the local government, Frank Orsaar-Adi, was seen receiving both the dead bodies and the injured who were brought for keeping in the mortuary and treatment respectively.
He told our correspondent that about 17 persons were shot and brought for treatment while others are said to have been taken to Abinsi with many still missing.
“We have so far received twelve dead bodies here. I have been informed that thirteen other have been assembled in front of my office at Gbajimba and we are still searching for six others we were informed got shot as well”.
He accused the security, especially the police, for abandoning them to their fate before the attack.
A survivor, Mchiaga Iornav, said the armed herdsmen razed many houses and torched a structure in the secretariat.
“But my family, I don’t know their whereabouts and since the time we left the separate ways I am yet to establish contact with them. My wife’s line is not going and I pray they are not killed”, he said.
Personal Physician to Governor Gabriel Suswam, Dr. Marcellenus Ortese, was seen at the Accident and Emergency unit of the hospital examining and helping the doctors to treat the wounded.
The PPRO of the Benue Police Command, Daniel Ezeala, SP, confirmed the attack but said the command was yet to ascertain the figure of the casualties, adding that the police were combing the area in search of mercenaries.
Meanwhile, suspected Islamist militants detonated a bomb in a crowded marketplace in Borno, killing at least 20 people, witnesses told Reuters.
Security officials said the attack late on Saturday in the town of Bama in Borno state bore the hallmarks of an attack by Boko Haram, which is fighting to carve an Islamic state out of northeast Nigeria.
Security sources say Boko Haram has killed hundreds, possibly thousands, this year in a campaign of violence that is growing in intensity.
“I travelled to Bama …to buy bags of beans. Suddenly, there was a deafening bang at the middle of the market. It was in the late afternoon and commercial activities were at their peak,” said Shuaibu Abdullahi, a trader at the market. He estimated the death toll to be as high as 29.
Abba Tahir, a bus driver who was offloading passengers at the market, said he counted 20 bodies.
“People were helping in evacuating the corpses after the confusion had died down. Some people who were injured were taken to the general hospital,” Tahir said.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. The military spokesman for Borno state did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A military crackdown since last May has failed to quell the insurgency, which after four and a half years remains the leading security threat to Africa’s top oil producer.
Borno state has ordered all of its schools to shut before the end of term to protect children after Islamists killed dozens of pupils in an attack last month, state officials said on Friday.
Security officials said Boko Haram had shot or burned to death at least 29 pupils in a boarding school in the northeast. A journalist who counted bodies in the morgue after the attack put the figure at 59.
The failure of the military to protect civilians is fuelling anger in the northeast, although state security officials have claimed some recent successes, including killing several militants as they tried to escape from a prison in Borno’s state capital Maiduguri this month.
