Umuoba Anam/Aguleri Clash: Displaced Residents Yet To Return Home 45 Days After

Over 2,000 residents displaced during the latest communal skirmishes between the people of neighbouring Umuoba Anam and Aguleri communities in Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra State are yet to return to their homes, over 45 days after the sad incident.

About 10 lives were reportedly lost, 150 houses destroyed, and over 2,000 residents displaced from their homes during the communal clashes that occurred for two days, between October 1 and 2, 2026, around the Umuoba Anam/Aguleri boundary areas.

The head of operations of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Enugu Zonal Office, Mrs. Priscilia Madukwe, led a team of the agency’s staff members, alongside the Head of Administration, Anambra State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mrs. Ndidi Omega, and the chairman of Anambra East Local Government, Hon. Ifeanyi Chinweze, on an assessment tour of the devastation in the communities during the two-day skirmishes, and lamented that the destruction to lives and property was huge.

The NEMA operations head told newsmen after the tour at the weekend that about 150 houses were destroyed, no fewer than 10 persons lost their lives, while over 2,000 persons who ran away from their homes, either because their houses and shops were destroyed, were yet to return to the communities.

Other valuable properties, including vehicles and goods in people’s shops belonging to natives and non-natives, were destroyed.

A traditional ruler’s palace was also destroyed during the violence.

Madukwe bemoaned the level of destruction and assured the victims that the agency would submit its findings to the federal government for possible intervention.

The state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, had following the unfortunate incident set up a panel to investigate the cause of the communal skirmishes and make appropriate recommendations for a permanent solution to it.

The panel has not concluded its assignment.

Security operatives are still stationed in the troubled areas in the communities.

LEADERSHIP however, learnt that historically, the communal clashes and conflicts between Umuoba Anam and Aguleri, along with Umuleri, in Anambra East Local Government Area have occurred at multiple points, with the first recorded in 1933, followed by another in December 1964, and 1995.

A major, severe outbreak of the violence occurred on April 2, 1999, with renewed fighting in July 1999, during which the then President Olusegun Obasanjo visited the war-ravaged communities and, worried by the level of devastation, queried, “Are there no elders in these communities? Don’t people living here know God?”