Heavily armed bandits suspected to be Fulani militias on Wednesday evening, attacked a group of youths returning from a security meeting, killing two and injuring six.
The attack which occured around 7:30 pm along the Barkin Ladi-Dorowa Babuje road in Barkin Ladi LGA of Plateau State, has thrown the community into panic following a lull in such violence in recent times.
National President of Berom Youths Moulders Association, BYM, Solomon Dalyop, who confirmed the killings, condemned the attack which he described as senseless and unprovoked.
He narrated that the youths, most of them leaders in their wards, were invited for a security meeting at the Sector Four Command of the Operation Enduring Peace, OPEP, and were on their way back when they were ambushed by the gunmen.
“Two of our people were killed on Wednesday evening when they were going home after attending a security meeting called by the Sector Four Commander,” Dalyop said.
“They were ambushed along the Barkin Ladi-Dorowa Babuje road and killed. That same yesterday, the militias attacked two villages simultaneously and killed one person in the night around 7:00 pm,” he said.
Dalyop said the attacks and killings have confirmed his fears that an allegation raised by the Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, Ibrahim Babayo, who claimed that a 13-year-old herder and 39 cows were killed by Berom youths on Tuesday, was a smokescreen to prepare the bandits to go on attacking spree in the communities.
“Yesterday, they came up with an allegation that their cows were killed. They will always come up with such allegations when they want to kill,” Dalyop said.
“Assuming that something like that happened, won’t you allow security agents to carry out an investigation? From our own assumption, it is their own people who attended the security meeting who gave information to their killers about the road our own people returning home would follow.
“So they went and blocked the road and killed two people, injured six, while two others escaped. The corpses of those killed are now lying at the morgue of the Barkin Ladi General Hospital,” Dalyop lamented.