Unidentified people attacked a community in Plateau State, Nigeria’s north central region, in mid-April, killing at least 52 residents. A similar attack in the same state claimed 48 lives earlier in the month.
In neighbouring Benue State, north central Nigeria, unnamed assailants attacked two communities in March, killing at least five people. Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu described the Plateau violence as rooted in misunderstandings between different ethnic and religious groups.
Nigeria’s spiralling insecurity is sometimes blamed on armed herders, at other times on bandits or kidnappers. Then there are extremist groups like Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province and Lakurawa, operating mostly in northern Nigeria. In the southern part of the country, there are also armed groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra.
