No fewer than five people, including a 40-year-old woman, her two children aged three and five were killed in another attack by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Mbar community in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State.
More than 20 houses, farmlands were also destroyed in the attack said to have happened at about 11.45pm. The assailants stormed the village with assorted weapons and started shooting sporadically, thereby scaring people away before embarking on killing of innocent people and destroying houses.
In an incident that has been described as a black Sunday for the people of the community, the gunmen ransacked the entire community.
Plateau State Commissioner for Housing and Urban development, Mr. Solomon Maren, who confirmed the attack described it as barbaric especially as peace was gradually returning to the state.
He said the community accused Fulani herdsmen as being the perpetrators of the violence, because one Fulani man was arrested in a similar incident that led to the death of two people in the area, adding that the Fulani admitted that he was paid to attack Mbar.
Maren said, “Security personnel have been deployed in the community to prevent further loss of lives.
“The injured were taken to Plateau Specialist Hospital, and the General Hospitals in Barkin Ladi and Bokkos, while rescue efforts are still going on to rescue more victims trapped in burning houses.”
The commissioner disclosed that in one of the houses, five cars and three motorcycles were burnt down completely.