Latest news with #AneneSewueseCatherine
NZ Herald
27-05-2025
- NZ Herald
At least 30 killed in central Nigeria attacks, official says
She added that other people had been killed in neighbouring villages, but she had no figures. Victor said he and other locals had buried five people, including a father and two of his sons killed in the village of Tewa Biana 'very close to a military base'. Benue State Police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine confirmed two attacks in the area but said her office had received 'no report of 20 people' killed. She said one raid resulted in the death of a policeman who had 'repelled an attack' and that 'three dead bodies were discovered'. The motive for the violence was not clear, but Victor blamed the 'co-ordinated attacks' on Fulani cattle herders. Muslim ethnic Fulani nomadic herders have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, in Benue over access to land and resources. The attacks in Nigeria's so-called Middle Belt often take on a religious or ethnic dimension. Benue has been one of the states hit hardest by such violence between nomadic herders and farmers who blame herdsmen for destroying farmland by grazing cattle.
Al Jazeera
19-04-2025
- Al Jazeera
Herder-farmer clashes in Nigeria kill at least 17
At least 17 people are reported to have been killed as suspected nomadic cattle herders carried out twin attacks in central Nigeria's Benue State. Police spokesperson Anene Sewuese Catherine said in a statement on Friday that 'a large number of suspected militia had invaded' a region of Benue State overnight. The attack came amid a resurgence of deadly clashes between herders and farmers, a conflict that has killed hundreds over recent years. Security forces were deployed and as the assailants 'were being repelled in the early hours of today, they shot sporadically at unsuspecting farmers' killing five farmers in Benue's Ukum area. Police said a second attack took place in Logo, about 70km from the area of the first incident. 'Unfortunately an unsuspected simultaneous attack was carried out' in a neighbouring locality, where 12 people were killed before police arrived, the police spokesperson said. The attacks came just two days after 11 people were killed in the Otukpo area of Benue, and barely a week after gunmen attacked villages and killed more than 50 people in neighbouring Plateau State. Since 2019, clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities have killed more than 500 people in the region and forced 2.2 million to leave their homes, according to research firm SBM Intelligence. The clashes, mostly between Muslim Fulani herders and Christian farmers from the Berom and Irigwe ethnic groups, are often painted as ethnoreligious. However, analysts have said climate change and scarcity of pastoral land are pitting the farmers and herders against each other, irrespective of faith. The conflict has disrupted food supplies from north-central Nigeria, a significant agricultural area.
