In a renewed wave of violence, two persons have been killed by assailants in Durbi village of Shere district of Jos East local government area.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Transition Implementation Committee Chairman, Markus Nyam confirmed this on Sunday revealing that the attackers invaded the village on Saturday night and killed a father and his son.
This incident comes on the heels of the recent Christmas Eve attacks in Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi local government areas, where over 190 lives were lost.
Nyam also noted that vigilant community members engaged the assailants, resulting in the death of one attacker as others fled.
The Joint Security Task Force Operation Safe Haven personnel swiftly responded, preventing further damage.
Plateau State has been attacked twice within a week. In the previous attack on December 24, over 190 persons were killed while marking the Christmas Eve attacks on Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi local government areas of the state.
Several houses were said to have been set ablaze by the attackers who also looted farm produce and destroyed properties in the process.
Nearly 200 people died in the attacks that began on the evening of December 23 and lasted through the morning of December 26 wracked by violence for years.
Nearly 20,000 people, mostly women and children, have left some 20 villages around Bokkos and Barkin Ladi due to the attacks.
The region, riddled with religious and ethnic tensions, is grappling with the aftermath of the recent attacks, prompting Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to instruct “security agencies to immediately move in, scour every stretch of the zone, and apprehend the culprits”.
Northwest and central Nigeria have been long terrorised by bandit militias operating from bases deep in forests and raiding villages to loot and kidnap residents for ransom.
Competition for natural resources between nomadic herders and farmers, intensified by rapid population growth and climate pressures, has also exacerbated social tensions and sparked violence.
A jihadist conflict has raged in northeastern Nigeria since 2009, killing tens of thousands of people and displacing around two million, as Boko Haram jihadists battle for supremacy with rivals linked to the Islamic State group.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement he was “deeply alarmed” by the Christmas weekend attacks.
“The cycle of impunity fuelling recurrent violence must be urgently broken. The government should also take meaningful steps to address the underlying root causes and to ensure non-recurrence of this devastating violence,” he said.
