By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) – At least three policemen have been killed in an ambush by herders in northeastern Nigerian state as security agencies responded to a distress call on a violent attack at Bujum Kasuwa village, police said on Saturday.
“We lost three of our men in an ambush in Lau local government area […] as they responded to distress calls during an attack,” David Misal, police spokesman in Taraba state, told Anadolu Agency on Saturday.
Misal said two civilian vigilantes were also killed in the ambush early Friday.
Taraba is one the country's agrarian states that are locked in farmers-herders' crisis that has claimed hundreds of lives.
The two sides have often accused the security agencies of bias and collusion.
Earlier this week, 11 people were killed in the agrarian north-central Plateau state.
The attacks were the latest in the chain of violence in central Nigeria where herders and farmers are locked in a deadly crisis over land ownership and grazing rights, leading to hundreds of deaths and mass displacement this year alone.
Experts have blamed the crisis partly on the shrinking level of the Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, the southward movement of herders in search of pastures for their cattle, farming activities on historical grazing routes and government's failure to proactively strike a balance between the interest of the farmers and the herdsmen.
