The death toll in the latest coordinated attacks on the Plateau has risen to 148, the Chairman of Bokkos Local Government Area, Monday Kassa disclosed on Wednesday.
The toll marked a sharp rise from the initial figure reported by the army on Sunday evening of just 16 dead in a region plagued for several years by religious and ethnic tensions.
Kassa stated this during a visit by Vice President Kashim Shettima, three days after the assailants set ablaze several houses. The marauders also looted farm produce and destroyed properties as they butchered the residents, an act that has been condemned by President Bola Tinubu who directed security agencies to unmask the attackers.
He said 38 communities were attacked by them on Sunday, the worst outbreak of violence in Plateau since May when more than 100 people were killed in farmer-herder attacks.
Military gangs, locally called “bandits”, launched “well-coordinated” attacks in “not fewer than 20 different communities” and torched houses, Kassa had said.
In his speech, the Vice President said President Tinubu’s administration is determined to bring to an end the security challenges in the Plateau and other parts of the country.
Noting that President Tinubu was touched by the barbaric act, Shettima assured the people of justice and that the perpetrators of the heinous act would be brought to book.
He also directed the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to provide immediate intervention to those affected especially those displaced from their homes.
Hundreds of families are now living in internally displaced persons camps provided by the state government.
