- ONITSHA, Nigeria: Ethnic violence in a remote part of Nigeria’s “middlebelt” has killed 16 people and wounded 20, after Fulani herdsmen raided a village there, Benue state authorities said on Tuesday.
Ejike Alaribe, spokesman for Benue state, confirmed the incident, which occurred in the state’s Gwer West group of villages late on Sunday.
“Police have been sent there to maintain peace...there is no more fighting there now,” he said.
Violence over land is common in Nigeria, where the majority of its 160 million people are subsistence farmers in rural areas with few means of arbitrating disputes.
The middlebelt, where a largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet, is particularly volatile.
Clashes between rival ethnic groups in eastern Nigeria’s Ebonyi state killed 50 people at the end of December.
Hundreds of people are killed every year in such clashes although they are usually sporadic and rarely escalate into sustained conflict.
