{"id":145968,"date":"2018-06-25T02:43:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T02:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/communal-clashes-leave-86-dead-in-nigeria\/"},"modified":"2018-06-25T02:43:50","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T02:43:50","slug":"communal-clashes-leave-86-dead-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/communal-clashes-leave-86-dead-in-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"Communal clashes leave 86 dead in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Coffins are carried during a funeral service for 17 worshippers and two priests, who were allegedly killed by Fulani herdsmen in Benue State, north-central Nigeria on May 22, 2018.\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/C25E\/production\/_102185794_coffins.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Nigeria has seen decades of intermittent violence between Berom farmers and Fulani herders (file picture)                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">At least 86 people have died in central Nigeria after violent clashes broke out between farmers and cattle herders, police in Plateau state said.<\/p>\n<p>Some reports say fighting began on Thursday when ethnic Berom farmers attacked Fulani herders, killing five of them.<\/p>\n<p>A retaliatory attack on Saturday led to more deaths. <\/p>\n<p>The area has a decades-long history of violence between ethnic groups competing for land.<\/p>\n<p>A curfew has now been imposed in three parts of the state. <\/p>\n<p>State police commissioner Undie Adie said a search of villages following the bloodshed revealed that 86 people had been killed, and six injured.<\/p>\n<p>He said 50 houses had been burned, as well as 15 motorbikes and two vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>The Plateau state government said the curfew would be in place between 18:00 to 06:00 local time (17:00 to 05:00 GMT) in the Riyom, Barikin Ladi and Jos South areas &quot;to avert a breakdown of law and order&quot;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nigeria&#039;s tin mine healing world&#039;s oldest rift<\/li>\n<li>More on Nigeria<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tit-for-tat clashes erupt into warfare<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Analysis by the BBC&#039;s Stephanie Hegarty, in Lagos<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s an age-old conflict that has recently taken on a new level of brutality. <\/p>\n<p>In Nigeria&#039;s central region settled farming communities and nomadic cattle herders often clash - usually over access to land and grazing rights. <\/p>\n<p>But these tit-for-tat clashes have erupted into inter-communal warfare, killing thousands in the last year.   <\/p>\n<p>This region, where the Muslim north meets the Christian south is prone to religious tension - herders are ethnic Fulani and mostly Muslim, while the farmers are mostly Christian. <\/p>\n<p>But it&#039;s not clear why this spike in violence is happening right now. Nigeria&#039;s president has repeatedly blamed the escalation on an increase in gun-running from Libya. <\/p>\n<p>Others blame security forces&#039; failures in a country busy fighting two insurgences - Boko Haram in the north and militants in the oil-producing south.<\/p>\n<p>The state&#039;s governor Simon Lalong said work was under way &quot;to secure the affected communities and fish out perpetrators of these crimes&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;While we pray for God&#039;s guidance through this difficult time, we will do everything humanly possible to secure our state immediately,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Reuters<figcaption>Image caption                                      Critics have accused Nigeria&#039;s President Buhari of failing to contain the tensions because he himself is a Fulani                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Nigeria&#039;s President Muhammadu Buhari - himself a Fulani - is under increasing pressure to address the tensions ahead of elections in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>In January he ordered the head of police to relocate to the country&#039;s middle belt to manage clashes there. <\/p>\n<p>Special forces were also deployed to the central states of Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba to &quot;secure vulnerable communities and prevent further attacks&quot;. <\/p>\n<h2>Who are the Fulani herdsmen?<\/h2>\n<p>They are believed to be the largest semi-nomadic group in the world, and are found across West and Central Africa - from Senegal to the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n<p>In Nigeria, some continue to live as semi-nomadic herders, while other have moved to cities.<\/p>\n<p>The nomadic groups spend most of their lives in the bush.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      A Fulani herdsman waters his cattle (file picture)                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They herd their animals across vast areas, frequently clashing with farming communities.<\/p>\n<p>Read more on Nigeria&#039;s Fulani-farmer conflict<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright AFP\/Getty ImagesImage caption Nigeria has seen decades of intermittent violence between Berom farmers and Fulani herders (file picture) At least 86 people have died in central Nigeria after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}