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MARKUDI, Nigeria — Security forces have deployed in central Nigerian villages after communal clashes killed at least eight people and forced thousands to flee their homes, officials said on Thursday.
The clashes broke out last week pitting a local farming ethnic group known as Tivs against Fulani nomadic herdsmen in Africa's most populous nation.
Police in Benue state said they recorded five deaths, while in neighbouring Nassarawa state police said three people were killed in the clashes. Local media speculated that 50 people could have been dead in sporadic fighting between the two sides in recent weeks.
Nassarawa state police spokesman Cornelius Ocholi said "heavy security, very heavy security has been deployed" in the affected areas. Both the military and police were involved.
"For now the situation is absolutely calm and security forces have been deployed to ensure the problem does not escalate," said Benue state police spokesman Ejike Alaribe.
A local relief agency official said two camps holding an estimated 5,000 people had been set up in the two neighbouring states. The people fled their homes fearing more attacks.
"It is an escalation of border clashes between Fulani herdsmen and Tiv farmers along the Benue-Nassarawa boundary, with a resultant desertion of south Doma local government area by various ethnic tribes," said Ibrahim Abu of the national emergency management agency.
Clashes between local farming ethnic groups, usually Christian and the nomadic pastoralists, who are mainly Muslim, occur regularly in central Nigeria where Jos, the capital of Plateau state and Nigeria's flashpoint of communal violence, is situated.
Nassarawa neighbours Plateau state, which lies in the so-called middle belt region between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south of Nigeria.
The area has been caught in a cycle of deadly violence and reprisal attacks that have regularly flared up for years. Thousands of people have been killed in Plateau state alone in recent years.
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1 comment:
அமைதி மார்க்கமும், அன்பு மார்க்கமும் மோதிக்கொள்வதைப் பார்த்தால் ஏதோ உலகத்துக்கு நல்லது நடப்பதற்கான அறிகுறி மாதிரி தெரிகிறது. இரண்டையும் பிற மக்கள் புரிந்து கொள்வார்களே. இந்த இரண்டு மதங்களும் ஒழிந்தாலே உலகில் அமைதி ஏற்பட்டுவிடும். அந்த நாளுக்காக காத்திருப்போம்.
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