MAIDUGURI — Gunmen killed at least 51 people in the early hours of Monday in two villages in Bassa district of Plateau State, northern Nigeria, deepening fears of escalating violence in the region known for deadly clashes between farming and herding communities.
Residents in Zikke and Kimakpa villages reported that attackers stormed the area overnight, leaving scores of bodies behind and setting homes ablaze. Many others were injured during the rampage, according to local accounts and a statement by Amnesty International Nigeria.
Mass burials were already underway by Monday morning, as grief and anger swept through the affected communities. “There is outrage in the land at the moment,” said Joseph Chudu Yonkpa, a resident who blamed the assault on armed cattle herders.
The motive behind the attack has not yet been confirmed, and police authorities have not issued a statement.
Amnesty International accused the attackers of looting and torching homes, calling the repeated violence in Plateau a sign of alarming security failures. “The inexcusable security lapses that enabled this horrific attack, two weeks after the killing of 52 people, must be investigated,” the rights group said.
Last week, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said at least 52 people were killed and nearly 2,000 displaced during days of attacks in other parts of Plateau State.
Plateau lies in Nigeria’s volatile Middle Belt, a region often marred by clashes that are sometimes portrayed as ethno-religious strife between mainly Christian farming communities and Muslim herders. However, environmental pressures such as dwindling grazing lands and rising competition for resources have intensified the conflict in recent years.
“No community deserves to go through such trauma, bloodshed, and destruction,” said Albert Garba Samuel, a spokesperson for the Jere Nation Youths Development Association.
