A group, Kwande United Peoples Organisation (KWUPO) has disclosed that between 2013 to date over 6,000 persons have been killed and over100,000 displaced with property worth over N4 billion destroyed in Kwande local government area of Benue State.
Its national president, Levi Ikum, who disclosed this at a press conference in Makurdi, said as of today, five wards in Kwande local government area of Benue State including Yaav, Mbaikyor, Liev, Kumakwagh and Mbadura are under siege.
Represented by the national publicity secretary, Kator Atsaga, he said from all indications the intention of the invading armed herdsmen is to commit genocide and targeted at total elimination of Kwande people and occupation of their ancestral land by force through the use of sophisticated weapons.
The group who condemned the attacks in its entirety, lamented on the publications describing attacks on Benue farmers as ‘Farmer/Herder’ crises saying, the armed herders who are not indigenes of Benue, usually come in the wee hours of the night when everyone is deep asleep to attack and flee to neighbouring states, so this kind of attacks cannot in any way be called “farmer/herder crises.”
He said, “It has become a matter of desperate urgency that the people of Kwande Intermediate area cry out to the government of Benue State under the leadership of Governor Hyacinth Alia and the Federal Government of Nigeria led by President Bola Tinubu and indeed the global community to come to the rescue of the people of Kwande who are being killed daily in their Sleep and on their farms and their ancestral lands taken over by heavily armed herdsmen.
“Our cry as a people is for the Governor to strengthen his partnership and support for security agencies in the state, both federal and local, to protect Kwande from the invading armed herdsmen to enable farmers commence this year’s farming season.
“We are appealing to the governor to use the available resources to provide vehicles, communication gadgets and sundry support to security agencies to boost their capacity to fully implement the 2017 Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law to chase out all armed herders attacking Kwande communities.”
While commending the efforts so far made by the military and other security agencies including the DSS, Police, NSCDC, Customs, Immigration and others to protect the people of Kwande from the invading herdsmen to this moment, the group specifically requested for the establishment of an operational military base in the Turan axis which has been worst hit by the attacks and also for the fact that it is at the border between Nigeria and Cameroon.
“Our cry to the authorities concerned and the international community is one from an endangered people which we urge all to treat with utmost sense of urgency to avert the genocide by armed herdsmen targeted to physically eliminate us from the face of the earth and occupy our ancestral lands,” he added.
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