More details still emerging as invasion by Fulani herdsmen yesterday lead to attack of an agrarian community, Ukpabi Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government, Enugu State.
Forty eight members of the community were killed.
Over 60 houses and shops were set ablaze by the invading herdsmen. About 56 injured residents are receiving treatment at hospitals in Nsukka.
The attack came two days after a security report hinted of an impending attack by Fulani herdsmen in the area.
The report had said the community would be invaded by about 500 Fulani herdsmen from Nasarawa State.
A team of soldiers and mobile police drafted to the area after the report of the invasion filtered into the state was overpowered by the herdsmen.
The invaders, who came into Ukpabi-Nimbo in the wee hours of yesterday, were said to have used grenades, AK 47 and other dangerous weapons.
According to the residents, the herdsmen “were indiscriminately shooting and cutting our kinsmen with machetes”.
As at yesterday evening, some residents said those killed have exceeded the initial 48 brought to the Bishop Shanahan Hospital, Nsukka, by policemen.
Transitional Committee Chairman of Uzo-Uwani Local Government Cornell Onwubuya said despite efforts to stop the attack, the herdsmen still went ahead to unleash mayhem on the community.
Enugu Police, in a statement, said it had commenced “a full scale investigation into the alleged killing of six persons at Nimbo in Uzo Uwani Local Government by suspected herdsmen”.
The police said following a report, the Commissioner of Police, Nwaodibo Ekechukwu, mobilised and left with operatives to ensure that the incident did not degenerate into an uncontrollable situation and to work out strategies aimed at fishing out those behind it and to bring them to book.
The police said normalcy has returned to the area.
Ekechukwu ,who visited the area, urged the people of Nimbo to continue to be law-abiding and never to take laws into their hands.
But a worker at Bishop Shanahan Hospital, Nsukka, confirmed receiving 30 bodies and 22 injured persons in the morning.
Hundreds of displaced residents are reported to be taking refuge in Nsukka.
The Council of Bishops of Methodist Church of Nigeria yesterday described the continued onslaught by Fulani herdsmen as primitive and lamentable.
They called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take actions to stop the carnage.
The bishops said a situation where Fulani herdsmen would sack a community, villages and kill hundreds of people in a bid to feed and protect their cattle was unacceptable.
Speaking after their 34th Conference in Ibadan, presided over by the Prelate, Dr. Samuel Chukwuemeka Uche, they said Nigerians should no longer keep sacrificing human lives for the grazing of cows.
The council, in a communiqué at the end of the conference, decried the menace of Fulani herdsmen, which it said was now becoming worse than the Boko Haram insurgency.
They urged the Federal Government to establish ranches rather than creating grazing zones which, it observed, might create more problems.
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