Centre du Nigeria: au moins 20 morts lors d'affrontements communautaires
At least 20 people were killed Friday night in clashes between Kambari and Fulani communities in the village of Kokoli, located in the Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, central Nigeria, local sources told AFP Saturday morning.
The state of Niger is located in a vast region of central and northwestern Nigeria which, for years, has been terrorized by gangs of cattle rustlers and kidnappers, locally called "bandits", who attack different communities, kill residents and loot homes.
In recent years, jihadist groups waging a seventeen-year insurgency in the northeast of the country have also established themselves in Niger State, an agricultural region rich in gold. The occasional cooperation between "bandits" and jihadists is raising concerns among observers.
"There was an intercommunal clash on Friday in the village of Kokoli. It pitted the Kambari against the Fulani, and left more than 20 dead," Aliyu Usman, a resident, told AFP.
Jafar Muhammad, MP for the Borgu constituency, also confirmed the incident and called for the deployment of conventional security forces to stem the violence.
"More than 20 people were killed on Friday, and these killings were allegedly carried out by local militias," Muhammad told AFP.
He described the violence as an intercommunal conflict affecting several ethnic groups in the region and urged the authorities to deploy security forces.
"We need the presence of heavily armed security forces to control the situation," he demanded.
The recruitment of Fulani people (known as Peuls in Nigeria) by jihadist groups in the neighboring Sahel has triggered deadly reprisals, carried out by government forces and militias, against Fulani civilians.
In May, a Nigerian militia operating alongside the army, as well as militiamen from neighboring Benin, killed around forty Fulani herders, accused of being informants for the jihadist group Ansaru, in the Borgu constituency.
According to experts, these reprisals could backfire on their perpetrators by pushing some Fulani to join jihadist groups to ensure their own safety.
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