Separate outbreaks of violence attributed to a Boko Haram attack and clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farmers left at least six people dead in Nigeria, police and local authorities said on Saturday.
At least three people were killed late on Friday when Boko Haram attacked the Hyambula village in northeast Adamawa state, police and a community leader told AFP after the latest in a spate of jihadist raids targeting civilians.
“There was an attack at Hyambula last night. Three people were killed and three others kidnapped,” Adamawa state police spokesperson Othman Abubakar said, blaming Boko Haram for the attack.
The suspected jihadists had shot dead one man, before a suicide bomber blew himself up among residents gathered at the scene, killing two and leaving five injured.”They shot a resident who was resting under a tree outside his house,” Community leader Maina Ularamu said.
“When residents had gathered around him a suicide bomber hiding in the tree jumped off and detonated his explosives among the crowd.”
Adamawa was said to have been cleared of Boko Haram in late 2015.
But attacks have continued in the north of the state, particularly around Madagali, which borders Borno state and the militants’ Sambisa Forest stronghold.
In separate clashes, at least three people were killed in central Plateau state when Fulani herders attacked Jebu-Bassa, a farming village of Irigwe tribesmen.
“Three persons were killed and eight injured in renewed hostilities in Jebu-Bassa,” Plateau state police spokesperson Tyopev Terna said, saying herdsmen were suspected of the killings on Thursday night.
A youth leader of the Muslim ethnic Hausa Rafin Bauna community said the attack may have been in reprisal for recent attacks on Fulani and Hausa communities by Irigwe militia which left one dead and several homes burnt.
Inter-community violence has left an estimated 100 people dead in central Nigeria since the turn of the year, leaving the government of President Muhammadu Buhari under fire for not dealing with the spiralling unrest.
A September report by the International Crisis Group estimated the death toll since 2016 at some 2 500.
Plateau state lies in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt that separates the predominantly Muslim north from the largely Christian south and has long been a hotbed of ethnic, sectarian and religious tensions.
Source: AFP
