ABUJA - At least 30 people have been killed in a week of clashes between farming communities and nomadic cattle herdsmen in Adamawa state, near the eastern frontier with Cameroon, local officials and residents said on Tuesday.
The deadliest fighting took place last Thursday when ethnic Fulani herdsmen attacked the farming village of Bali, killing 28, said Saidu Adamu, a local government official.
“Farmers in the area have been complaining that cattle have been grazing on their land, and on Tuesday last week killed two Fulani herdsman over the dispute,” Adamu told IRIN. “This latest incident was obviously a reprisal,” he added.
One Bali resident, Kwanga Dogo, told IRIN that the attackers had been armed with assault rifles, machetes and bows and arrows and had stormed the village in the early hours of the morning.
Dogo said the dialects spoken by some of the assailants suggested they hailed from nearby Chad and Niger, but police and local officials would not confirm the claims.
Dogo said he had escaped from the village and had fled to the state capital, Yola.
Adamawa state police chief, Hafiz Ringim said police reinforcements were being sent to the affected area to stop the violence from escalating.
Over the last decade, clashes between indigenous farming communities and nomadic herdsmen have increased in several parts of central Nigeria, including the country’s eastern flank.
Increasing desertification in northern Nigeria has been forcing herders further south into the central region in search of pasture, raising the ire of farmers that work the land.
Remnants of former rebel forces in Chad and Niger have moved into Nigeria during this period, engaging in banditry.
Residents and police have in the past blamed these armed gangs for some of the violence, alleging that they often hire themselves out as mercenaries.
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