From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
Gunmen, suspected to be killer herdsmen, have reportedly killed three persons in cold blood, in a fresh attack on Adaka community of Benue state.
Adaka is a settlement about 20 kilometers on the outskirts of Makurdi Local Government Area and also Benue state capital. The incident happened on Saturday, December 17, 2022.
A resident of the community, Iorkohol Unande, a survivor of the dastardly incident said the attack was unprovoked.
He said the attackers shot sporadically, injuring several persons in the community while three dead bodies were recovered by the time the killer herdsmen retreated unchallenged.
According to him, the three persons killed by the attackers were all men who were shot at and their bodies butchered by the assailants.
When contacted, the police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Benue state police command, SP Catherine Anene, confirmed the incident. She, however, said she has no details yet.
Also confirming the incident to newsmen on Sunday, Special Adviser to Governor Samuel Ortom on Security Matters, Lt. Col. Paul Hemba said “On Friday, Adaka community reported that one of their sons went out with two others who came to rent a piece of land to farm rice but never came back up till the evening of that day.
“The community raised the alarm, they alerted me. I got in touch with security personnel patrolling the area, this includes the police and military. I called them. But they said they did not have information on any missing persons.
“When I was informed of the development was night, so we waited still Saturday morning, and sent out patrols including members of the community and in the course of the patrol we discovered the corpses of the missing three persons brutally killed obviously with machete.”
According to him, “the community is suspecting that herdsmen murdered the victims. This is because the herdsmen have been operating in their vicinity. Additionally just last week, the herdsmen alleged that some of their cows which invaded the peoples rice farms were killed in that community.”
Hemba said the Commissioner of Police, CP Wale Abass is investigating the case.
Benue State has been under incessant brutal attacks by invading Fulani herdsmen and the renewed killings are coming barely two months after similar separate attacks took place in Gbeji and Ukohol, communities in Ukum and Guma Local Government Areas of the state where at least 60 persons including two security personnel were massacred.
Official statistics from the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA indicate that the state currently has over 2 million persons taking refuge in Internally Displaced Persons, IDPS camps as result of herdsmen attacks.