Up to 300,000 displaced in central region

Up to 300,000 people are currently displaced in Nigeria's central region as a result of communal clashes and recent attacks launched against several communities by the army, local officials said. Shima Ayati, who heads a committee in Benue State that caters for displaced people, told journalists at the weekend that many of the victims were Tivs who fled fighting with Jukuns in neighbouring Taraba State. Others were survivors of the massacre of more than 200 people perpetrated by soldiers last week in several communities near the Benue/Taraba borders in apparent reprisal for the killing of 19 soldiers by a Tiv militia earlier this month. "In fact there are more than 300,000 people who are now homeless. I am really in a fix as we do not have the capacity to take care of them," Ayati told reporters. Large numbers of displaced people are staying in several camps around the Benue State capital, Makurdi, where they joined others who had fled an earlier fighting in June between Tivs and Hausa-speaking Azeris in nearby Nasarawa State. Tivs are the majority ethnic group in Benue State but have significant populations in other central region states, including Taraba, Nasarawa, Adamawa and Plateau. The conflicts involving the Tivs, who are mainly farmers, and their neighbours who are mainly from pastoral and fishing communities, are mostly over land ownership. There are widespread fears that prolonged conflict in the region, which is one of Nigeria's food producing areas, is likely to undermine the country's food security. Zaki-Biam, a rural town of 50,000 people, which bore the main brunt of last week's reprisal attacks by soldiers, is reputed to be the biggest yam market in Nigeria. Locals said many of the people who were killed by the rampaging soldiers were yam dealers who came from different parts of the country to buy the produce. "Zaki-Biam remains largely deserted as most of its residents who survived are fearful of coming back while traders who came daily to buy yam from all over Nigeria are for now keeping away," Mike Oche, who comes from the town, told IRIN.