Over 40 persons have been reportedly killed by bandits in Zurak Kompani and Bandalala communities, Bashar District of Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Some Wase residents who spoke to Channels Television on the phone said the attacks on the villages occurred on Monday night when residents were retiring from the day’s work.

The bandits, according to the residents, attacked the villages simultaneously. They set houses on fire, leading to pandemonium in which some of the residents were killed and others sustaining injuries.

Over thirty persons were reportedly killed in Kompani Zurak while another ten were killed in Bandalala with several others still missing.

Residents of the attacked communities have fled to neighbouring villages to seek refuge.

One of the residents of Wase town Audu Ummah said that some of the injured from the attacked communities are receiving treatment in various health centres while other survivors have moved to Wase and other villages.

Security agencies are yet to comment on the attacks as of the time of this report. The state government has yet to do the same.

The incident adds to the growing number of attacks in communities in the North-Central state which has been plagued by incessant clashes.

Plateau, which lies on the dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, is a flashpoint for intercommunal violence.

In December, several people were killed in raids on villages. Thousands of others were displaced in the attacks.

Clashes in Nigeria’s North-West and North-Central states have their roots in tensions over land between nomadic herders and pastoral farmers.

Competition for natural resources, intensified by rapid population growth and climate pressures, has spiralled into broader criminality.

Worried by the incessant attacks, the UN’s World Food Programme warned that conflict and insecurity, along with inflation and climate change, could sharply drive up hunger levels across the country.

Operatives of the Makurdi Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Friday May 17, 2024 arrested three brothers for suspected internet fraud.

The siblings were arrested along New Garage, Wadata in Makurdi.

Spokesman of the agency, Dele Oyewale, who made this known on Sunday, said the suspects, Abubakar Sadiq Adejoh, Mohammed Habib Adejoh and Solomon Adejoh allegedly specialise in diverting customers’ funds from their accounts to a Point of Sale, POS, terminal for withdrawal.

Items recovered from them include a car, six mobile phones, one laptop and cash totaling N3,562,750.00 ( Three Million Five Hundred and Sixty Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Fifty Naira) only.

They will be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.

Two persons were killed while seven others were abducted in an attack on Ikachi Village in Akparata area of Effium in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, the police have confirmed

The spokesperson for Ebonyi Police Command, DSP Joshua Ukandu, who confirmed the incident added that the assailants also destroyed property worth millions of naira in the area on Sunday.

He added that the police have been working with other security agencies to restore peace into the area and to also ascertain the cause of the latest flare-up of communal clashes in the area.

Ezza and Effium communities have been enmeshed in deadly clashes since 2021.

“We are aware of the attack and the command is on top of the situation.

“We have been working with other security agencies to ensure that peace returned to the area.

“The command is also investigating the attack to ascertain the root cause of the matter,” Ukandu said.

The police spokesman said that officers and men of the command were committed to the protection of lives and property in Ebonyi.