{"id":67118,"date":"2025-06-02T11:36:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T11:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67118"},"modified":"2025-06-02T11:36:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T11:36:29","slug":"herdsmen-kill-25-in-fresh-benue-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/02\/herdsmen-kill-25-in-fresh-benue-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Herdsmen Kill 25 in Fresh Benue Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At least 25 people were killed over the weekend in two separate attacks by suspected herdsmen in north-central Nigeria, a region plagued by violent land disputes and communal reprisals.<\/p>\n

In Ankpali community of Apa Local Government Area in Benue State, 14 people were killed on Sunday in an early morning attack. Confirming the incident, Chairman of the council, Adam Ochega, described the situation as tense, warning that “there are still some threats here and there.”<\/p>\n

Later that evening, suspected Fulani militias launched another attack on Naka village in Gwer West Local Government Area, killing 11 people.<\/p>\n

“So far we have recovered 11 dead bodies and five people are confirmed injured,” said Ormin Victor, Chairman of Gwer West council.<\/p>\n

He attributed the violence to \u201ccoordinated attacks\u201d by Fulani herders, though the exact motives remain unclear.<\/p>\n

The longstanding conflict between nomadic Fulani herdsmen, mostly Muslims and predominantly Christian farming communities in Benue and other parts of the Middle Belt has escalated in recent years.<\/p>\n

The clash is often over land and dwindling natural resources, worsened by climate change and growing population pressure.<\/p>\n

While farmers accuse herders of destroying crops through open grazing, herders claim they are also victims, alleging attacks, cattle theft, land encroachment, and poisoning.<\/p>\n

Benue has remained one of the flashpoints of the conflict, with repeated cycles of attacks and reprisals.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Plateau State, tensions have been further inflamed by disputes between indigenous communities and perceived settlers, land grabs, political struggles, and the influence of extremist religious preachers.<\/p>\n

The government continues to face mounting pressure to resolve the farmer-herder crisis, which has claimed thousands of lives and displaced many more in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo   At least 25 people were killed over the weekend in two separate attacks by suspected herdsmen in north-central Nigeria, a region plagued by violent land disputes and communal reprisals. In Ankpali community of Apa Local Government Area in Benue State, 14 people were killed on Sunday in an early morning attack. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1724,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insecurity","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67120,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67118\/revisions\/67120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}