The Plateau State Government has imposed a curfew on three local government areas following the alleged deaths of over 100 persons, Saturday night.
The councils are Riyom, Barakin Ladi and Jos south local government areas of the state.
The Secretary to the state government, Mr. Rufus Bature, made the announcement on Sunday afternoon.
He said “the movements in the three local government areas is hereby restricted as from between 6am to 6pm pending when the situation is calm.
According to him those on essential duties would be exempted from the curfew.
The Chairman of Berom Youth Movement, Ladi Choji told reporters that over 100 persons were killed while houses, including churches, were torched.
He noted that 31 corpses were recovered from Gashish village while 42 others were found from different villages in Barkin Ladi.
“I believe that this attack was carefully planned by the herdsmen in collaboration with some military personnel who aided the attack,” he said.
“We have recovered 34 corpses from Gana Ropp and 8 from Gashis while several others have not been recovered.
“The corpses would be close to 100 because apart from 42 corpses that we have recovered, we are mobilising people to go into the villages to pick other corpses corpses that have not been recovered.”
The spokesman of the Plateau police command, Mathias Tyopev confirmed the incident but could not give casualty figure.
In his reaction, the Commissioner for Information, Yakubu Dati, said the state government had mobilised the “full compliments” of security forces to restore normalcy in the affected areas.
“Government is deeply pained that despite concerted efforts which had led to the restoration of relative peace across the state, some unpatriotic elements are bent on disrupting the gains so far made,” he said in a statement.
Describing the attacks as genocide the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called on the international community to come to the aid of the state.
“We received with rude shock the level of genocide going on now in Gashish District, Razat, Ruku Nyarr and Gana-Ropp, all in Barkin Ladi local government,” John Akans, the party’s publicity secretary, said in a statement.
“We also note with great pains the dastardly attacks ongoing in many other local government areas in the state by the Fulani militias. We condemn in the strongest terms the level of continuous genocide of Plateau people. At the moment, Barkin Ladi is under siege with over 130 people feared to have been killed. As at time of this statement, the (SOM) CAPRO School of missions Gana-Ropp is under heavy attack by the militias.”
Plateau has recorded multiple killings this year alone.
