Six people
were killed last weekend when cattle herders battled farmers in northeast
Nigeria, a state government official said on Tuesday, in violence that has
piled pres
sure on the government.
The clashes
happened on Sunday in the Numan district of Adamawa state, where militia from
the ethnic Bachama farming community killed at least 30 Fulani herders last
November.
“Six people
were killed and many others were injured in attacks on two villages, Kikan and
Lauru,” Adamawa state information commissioner Ahmad Sajo told AFP.
“A group of
Fulani attacked Kikan, which is a Bachama village, killing three people,
injuring many and carting away cattle.”
He added:
“Bachama youths in the area mobilised and launched a reprisal attack on nearby
Lauru village.”
But the
attack may have targeted the wrong community, as Lauru is home to
Hausa-speaking Muslims who are not Fulani people.
“They are
largely vegetable growers,” said Sajo. “They (the Bachama) killed three people,
burned the whole village and injured one.”
Tit-for-tat
attacks have left thousands dead in recent decades, mainly in Nigeria’s central
states. Religion has exacerbated long-standing ethnic and sectarian tensions.
The Fulani
are Muslim while the farmers are largely Christian.
Tensions
have been increasing because of the nomadic herders’ need for land and water
for their livestock, which has pushed them beyond their normal grazing land.
Earlier this
month, more than 70 people from the Tiv farming community were killed in the central
state of Benue, bringing the issue to the fore once again.
Critics of
President Muhammadu Buhari, who is expected to seek a second term of office at
elections next February, have accused him of failing to act.
He has
rejected claims that it is because he is also of Fulani stock, while the
herders have said they have seen more than 1,000 killed since last June.
Failure to
prosecute those responsible, even where the perpetrators are known to the
authorities, has been seen as a major factor in causing the spiral of violence.
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