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ABUJA —Police in central Nigeria are investigating the killing last week of at least 15 people in a farming community that was attacked by gunmen. Police in central Nasarawa state say the killings appear to be in retaliation for the death of an ethnic Fulani herder who was attacked with a machete. Tensions between the farmer and herder communities over land use often explode into violence.
Nasarawa state police spokesman Ramhan Nansel said authorities have deployed joint security forces including police, counterterrorism units and the military to the affected area.
He said it was unusual to have communal clashes between farmers and herders in that area and that authorities are engaging the herders and farmers in peace talks, while the probe is underway.
The attackers invaded the Tarkalafia and Kwaja villages in Karu district late Thursday and reigned terror on villagers for hours, according to local residents.
Police said it was a reprisal attack after an 18-year-old herdsman was killed with a machete blow to his head, in the same area two days earlier.
Nansel spoke to VOA by phone.
"In that axis, we're experiencing this for the first time so it's kind of strange. We have activated stakeholders' engagements and interface. We've called for meetings between the farmers and herders across the state and some select local government [areas] where we normally experience those challenges," he said.
Locals told Nigerian media that at least 38 people were killed including a pastor. They say the victims including women and children were given a mass burial Saturday.
Nansel said police can only account for 15 deaths.
"I work with facts, I work with figures, I work with what I see not what I hear," he said.
Farmer-herder conflicts over resources like water, land, and pasture are one of the many security challenges troubling Africa's most populous nation.
In 2018 Amnesty International said nearly 4,000 people had been killed in bloody clashes over a three-year period. The group said the government's failure to investigate the problem was escalating the crisis.
Authorities have sent condolences to affected families, promised to punish perpetrators, and help supply relief materials to residents whose houses were burned.
Security Analyst Mike Ejiofor said the government must change its approach to achieve better results.
"By the time this government came in, we had insecurity concentrated in the northeast by activities of Boko Haram but when the government turned the heat on the Boko Haram they started spreading towards the northcentral, northwest. The incoming government should change their approach since we have not yielded much [by way of] results," he said.
Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari will be stepping down this month for successor Bola Tinubu.
President-elect Tinubu inherits a country still battling Islamic militants in the northeast and kidnap-for-ransom gangs known as bandits in the northwest and central regions.