No fewer than 10 persons were killed and several houses burnt in two separate renewed attacks in the Wukari Local Government Area of Taraba State on T
No fewer than 10 persons were killed and several houses burnt in two separate renewed attacks in the Wukari Local Government Area of Taraba State on Tuesday. The Caretaker Chairman, Wukari Local Government, Daniel Adi, confirmed this development.
Adi said armed gunmen in army camouflage attacked Rafinkada in the early hours of Tuesday and set several houses ablaze. He added that while the attack on Rafinkada was going on, another batch of the attackers blocked the Wukari-Takum Road at a forest close to Wukari and killed five persons. Adi noted that a soldier was injured in the attack at Rafinkada and was receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in Wukari.
Local residents also said five persons were killed at the Takum junction in Wukari in what appeared to be a reprisal on Rafinkada. An eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said two people in a vehicle he boarded from Zaki Biam in Benue State to Jalingo were removed by militia in Wukari and killed.
The eyewitness said three people were already killed according to information they gathered at the checkpoint where their vehicle was stopped along other vehicles.
“All the passengers were asked to come down and identify themselves. I don’t know who they were actually looking for. But two of the passengers were removed and taken away,” he said.
Many of the passengers, who travelled on the Jalingo-Wukari Road, told one of our correspondents that the situation was bad and scary as vehicles were been checked and some people killed in the process. However, Adi said there was no roadblock in Wukari where people were allegedly killed.
“When we got to where they alleged that there was a roadblock, there was nothing like that.
“We later saw some youths gathered at a location in Wukari town with a woman in their midst and we immediately rescue the woman. The youth alleged that the woman, a Tiv married to a Jukun man in Wukari, was giving information about the movement of Jukun people towards Rafinkada for Tiv people to lay an ambush for them. We immediately rescued the woman and dispersed the youth. The woman is now in safe hands,” he said.
