Tragedy As Herdsmen Kill Over 6000 people In Benue Community

-As Group Sends SoS To Tinubu, Demands Expansion Of Military Operations

As suspected armed Fulani terrorists continue to launch violent attacks on communities in Benue State, six council wards in Kwande Local Government Area of the state are said to have been overrun by suspected armed Fulani terrorists where over 6,000 people are reportedly killed.

This is just as over 100, 000 inhabitants are also displaced and properties worth over N4 billion destroyed in the attacks.

President General of the Kwande United Peoples Organization (KWUPO), Mr Levi Ikum, who disclosed this at a news conference in Makurdi said, the intractable attacks on Kwande which began twelve years ago is a genocide of determined and relentless intensity and of a scale targeting the total physical elimination of Kwande people by force of arms and the occupation of their lands by the invaders.

Mr. Ikum who spoke through the National Publicity Secretary of KWUPO, Hon. Kator Atsaga Anemba, named the council wards attacked to include: Moon, Mbadura, Yaav, Mkômon, Anem village and Shor Asase, Mbaikyer, Kumakwagh and Liev 1, describing the casualty toll on the people as heavy, sad, tragic and mournful’.

“The recent dimension which the invasion by the herdsmen has taken in the form of wanton killings of our people and the overrunning of whole communities is such as has never before been witnessed and the attendant consequences, if this shocking development is not arrested soon enough, is a direct threat to the continued existence of the people and the intermediate area known as Kwande”.

He pleaded with Governor Hyacinth Alia to strengthen his partnership and support security agencies, both at the federal, state and local levels to protect from the invading herdsmen.

“The governor should utilize the resources available to his office to provide vehicles, communication gadgets and sundry support to security agencies to boost their capacity to reach as well as preempt and combat the herdsmen to enforce the ban on open grazing which is in force in the state and stop their genocidal march on Kwande communities”.

The KWUPO leader also appealed to the governor to direct the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to undertake urgent humanitarian outreach to victims of the attacks to cushion the hardship they are passing through.

“KWUPO equally sends an SOS to President Bola Tinubu to expand the mandate, size and capability of the military operations in Benue and bring Kwande under a protective military shield that will keep it out of the reach of the rampaging herdsmen”.

“We specifically request that an operational base of the Nigerian Army be established in the Turan axis of Kwande Local Government Area which has been worst hit by the herdsmen attack and also for the fact that it is at the border between Nigeria and Cameroon”.