More than a hundred people have been killed in central Nigeria in a series of attacks on villages, local government officials said on Monday.
The death toll has risen sharply from an initial toll the military announced Sunday night of just 16 dead in a region wracked by long-standing religious and ethnic tensions.
“It has been confirmed that as many as 113 people were killed while the hostilities lasted from Saturday until the early hours of Monday morning,” Monday Kassah, the head of the local government in Bokkos, Plateau State, told AFP.
Military gangs, he added, launched “well-coordinated” attacks in “no less than 20 different communities.”
“We found more than 300 wounded people who were transferred to hospitals in Bokkos, Jos and Barkin Ladi,” he added.
The attacks that started in the Bokkos area spread to neighboring Barkin Ladi where 30 dead were found, local president Danjumi Dakil said.
On Sunday, state governor Caleb Mutfwang condemned the attack, calling it “barbaric, brutal and unjustified”.
“The government will take proactive measures to curb attacks on innocent civilians,” aid Gyang Bere, the governor’s spokesman, according to France24.
According to a source from the region, gunfire could still be heard late Sunday afternoon.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Amnesty International criticized the government after the attack, saying “Nigerian authorities are failing to end the frequent deadly attacks on rural communities in Plateau State”.
Northwest and central Nigeria have long been terrorized by bandit militias who operate from bases deep in the forests and attack villages to loot and kidnap residents for ransom.
