Nigeria: at least 160 killed, hundreds injured in attacks by armed gangs

At least 160 people have been killed and over 300 injured in central Nigeria in a series of “well-coordinated” attacks on villages carried out by armed groups know as “bandits”, local government officials have said.

On Monday (25 December), local officials said the toll of attacks by armed groups has risen to 113, increasing sharply from the government’s initial count of 16. The string of attacks that targeted 20 communities across central Nigeria over the weekend was another deadly episode in a region plagued for years by religious and ethnic tensions. Central and northwest Nigeria have long been terrorized by bandit militias operating from bases deep in forests and raiding villages to loot and kidnap residents for ransom. “Proactive measures will be taken by the government to curb ongoing attacks against innocent civilians,” said Gyang Bere, a spokesperson for the governor of Plateau, the twelfth-largest Nigerian state.

Plateau is one of several states that comprises the ethnically and religiously diverse Middle Belt in Nigeria, where climate change and expanding agriculture has strained communities and has led to increased inter-communal violence between Muslim herders and Christian farmers in recent years. After the weekend attacks, the Amnesty International, a human rights group, criticized authorities in the West African nation for “failing to end frequent deadly attacks on rural communities of Plateau state”. A jihadist conflict has raged in Nigeria’s north-east regions since 2009, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing around 2 million, as Boko Haram battles for supremacy with rivals linked to the Islamic State group.