Communal Clashes İn Nigeria's Taraba Leave 14 Dead

Up to 14 people are believed to have been killed in Nigeria's northeastern Taraba State in what locals have described as an attack by suspected Fulani herdsmen.



"Fulani mercenaries attacked us in the early hours of Monday," Terna Doki, a resident of Ayiase village in the Takum local government area, told The Anadolu Agency by phone.



He said five people had died in their community.



"They set ablaze our houses and killed a lot of people with machetes," Doki said. "Other weapons were freely used."



Theophilus Adamu, a resident of Gaza village in the Donga local government area of Taraba, was forced to flee to provincial capital Jalingo along with his family and several others.



"We lost six people at Gaza while people were also killed in neighboring village, but I don't have the precise figure of casualties," he told AA.



Adamu said many people "remain missing while our homes have been burnt."



Yohanah David, a resident of Tse-Gbaun village, also in Donga, said three people in the community had died.



"Five people were still missing when I fled with my family," he told AA from Jalingo.



Taraba police spokesman Joseph Kwaji said they did not have details regarding casualties.



"But our men deployed in the area have restored normalcy, while an investigation into the latest incident has commenced," he told AA.



Taraba – like Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue states, which fall in Nigeria's ethnically and religiously mixed Middle Belt – is prone to violent clashes, usually over farmland, grazing rights and political largesse.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Kahire