Taraba community: We’ve lost 62 persons to herdsmen attack

…Yandangs seek justice

The Yandang Community in Taraba state on Wednesday said the killing of six Yandang traders at Iware market square, a Jalingo suburb, on Tuesday, has brought the total number of its natives killed by herdsmen to sixty two, only from last Sunday.

Six Yandangs, already displaced by Fulani herdsmen hostilities in Lau local government area, were hacked to death when they brought cows to Iware market to sell and alleviate their sufferings in an IDP camp.

They were trailed and brutally massacred by Fulani marauders who alleged the cows were stolen ones.

Leader of the Yandang ethnic group, Alfred Kobbiba, who condemned the attack and killing, said the victims were not cattle rustlers.

Kobbiba, a Special Adviser to Governor Darius Ishaku on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), said they were demanding justice over the dastardly act.

He briefed reporters in Jalingo while crying to security agencies to bring the perpetrators to book.

Kobbiba said: “The brutal killing of six of our people at Iware cattle market is most unfortunate. We are saddened.

“All the six people killed on Tuesday in Iware cattle market are well known to me and I can attest of their good character.

“The cows they brought to the market for sale were their personal cows. Our people are in the business of cattle rearing too, contrary to the claims of the attackers.

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“Five of those killed are Yandang people from Mayo Lope while one is from a neighbouring village.

“We strongly suspect that the killing is a continuation of the violence by Fulani herdsmen already going on in Lau,” he said.

“If the cows were really stolen from them, why didn’t they report the matter for their cows to be returned? Instead they killed the people and disappeared.”

The Yandang people alleged that the Fulani herders have sacked several communities in Lau local government area and are now grazing freely in their crop farms.

They called on the federal and state governments to address the matter, adding: “the situation has now posed a serious danger, as food insecurity looms.”

Their leader (Kobbiba) disclosed that many, injured in the market attack, were receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre in Jalingo.

A security meeting was yesterday held by Governor Darius Ishaku and the commissioner of police on how to “trace the killers.”

Governor Ishaku told The Nation that “cow theft is a criminal act that will not be condoned but is not enough reason to kill anyone.”

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