At least 20 persons including an Army Officer identified as Lieutenant Chinedu Anyanwu and another rank and file have been killed in a renewed Tiv/Fulani clash along the border towns and villages in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State.
The three days of sustained attacks by armed Fulani herdsmen on affected villages and towns has also left several persons missing with over three thousand people displaced.
Daily Sun gathered that the displaced persons were now taking refuge in camps far away from their ancestral homes for fear of another attack by the Fulanis, who are involved in nocturnal raids in the community.
Among the missing is a soldier with one of the patrol teams deployed to the area.
An eyewitness told newsmen that invading Fulani herdsmen had also burnt down more than 1000 homesteads in close to 100 kindred compounds in the affected area close to Udei town, the largest settlement in the area.
Daily Sun correspondent also gathered that hundreds of displaced persons were now quartered in camps situated in Ortese, Daudu and Yelwetta, where the Benue State Emergency Management Agency was providing relief materials and healthcare service to them.
Some of the villagers, who had their relations in Makurdi had also fled the affected area and were now staying in different part of the state capital.
Msugh Iorpuu, a member of one of the affected communities who is now staying in Mobile Barracks, Adeke said the herdsmen first invaded the Udei area in the early hours of Sunday morning, overpowering the soldiers and mobile policemen deployed in the area.
Iorpuu, who told Daily Sun that one of his sisters, who had gone to write the NECO examination last Monday before they fled their village was yet to be seen at the time of filing this report.
He explained that the invading herdsmen were close to 100 and travelled on horse- back and foot to get to the villages in the area.
Meanwhile, Benue State Deputy Governor, Steven Lawani yesterday visited displaced persons’ camps in Daudu and Yelwetta, where he assured the people that the state government would not abandon them at this moment of grief.
Lawani also inaugurated a five-man Committee of Enquiry led by Mr Cletus Upaa to look into the immediate and remote causes of the crises with a view to forestalling future occurence.
He noted that the state government would liaise with the Nasarawa State Government to find a lasting solution to the border crises, which had led to loss of lives and property.
The deputy governor, who told newsmen that the Army had already informed its headquarters about the loss of its men in the clash, however, assured that the governors of both Benue and Nasarawa states would be meeting at Yelwata this Friday to among other things inaugurate a joint Committee of Enquiry into the clash.
When contacted, the Benue State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Alaribe Ejike (ASP) confirmed the conflict in the Benue-Nasarawa border between fulani herdsmen and Tiv farmers, but added that the area of fighting was not within the jurisdiction of the state command.
He said people on the Benue side of the border had fled their homes because of the fear of attacks from neighbouring Nasarawa State.
Although no reason has been given for the attacks, it may be reprisal attacks by the herdsmen after armed farmers killed a Fulani traditional ruler, Ardo of Kardarko, Alhaji Habibu Dono and four others last month during one of the clashes.
Though soldiers were drafted to assist mobile policemen restore peace to the area, the angry Fulani herdsmen were said to have served notice of reprisal attacks to the communities around Udei thereafter.
The series of attacks of the Tiv villages by Fulani herdsmen in recent times have left more than 100 persons dead in four Benue State local councils since January.
Residents of Makurdi are now living in fear, as the conflict draws closer to the Benue State capital.
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