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At least two dozen people have been killed after armed attackers invaded Bin-Per village in Mangu Local Government Area of Nigeria’s Plateau State, survivors have told AFP.
The attackers, who were reportedly armed with guns and machetes, carried out the assault on Monday night, according to residents who described fleeing their homes to escape the violence.
Mathew Joseph, a resident of Bin-Per, said he and others were forced to run after hearing sounds of gunfire and screams from neighbours.
“We were sleeping, we heard some noises, some people in our neighbourhood were screaming,” Joseph told AFP.
He said he looked outside and saw armed men approaching his home, prompting him and his family to escape before the attackers arrived.
“Before they arrived we managed to escape,” he said.
Joseph said 24 people had been killed in the attack, a figure also given by resident Muftwan Yamput, who said some of his neighbours were among those killed.
“We survived by the whisker, but my neighbours were attacked, two people killed in their house,” Yamput told AFP.
A field officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Biplang Moses, confirmed the incident but did not provide details on the number of casualties. Police have not commented on the attack.
The violence comes after a series of clashes in Plateau State, where tensions between farming communities and nomadic herders have persisted for years. Many farmers in the region are Christians, while many Fulani herders are Muslims. Disputes over land, water resources and grazing routes have frequently led to deadly confrontations.
The latest killings have followed the deaths of two herders in the area last week. Residents said those deaths were followed by a suspected reprisal attack on the nearby village of Maitimbe, where several homes were reportedly burnt.
Plateau, located in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, has experienced repeated cycles of communal violence linked to competition over land, resource access, identity and local political disputes.
Climate change, population growth and pressure on available farmland have increased competition between communities, while weak security responses have often allowed retaliatory attacks to follow.
Some groups have described the violence in Plateau as persecution against Christians, but the Nigerian government and independent researchers have rejected such claims, saying the conflicts are driven by multiple social, economic and security factors.
The state has also witnessed deadly religious and communal riots in urban areas, with hundreds of people killed in recent years.
