Farmers, herders clash leave 30 dead in Plateau

At least 30 people were killed in clashes between farmers and herders in Barkin Ladi local council area of Nigeria’s central region Plateau State, local officials said on Thursday.

The clashes were said to have been sparked by a dispute over grazing land in the village of Kassa. In the fighting which continued since Monday local Berom people and nomadic Fulani herders were said to have suffered casualties.

"No less than 30 people have so far died," Silas Anga, a local official, told IRIN. "And now the fighting has spread to Riyom local council."

Intermittent fighting has broken out between herders and local people in Plateau State since ethno-religious clashes broke out in Jos, the state capital, in September 2001. At least 1,000 people were killed in a week of fighting between mainly Christian locals and Hausa-Fulani settlers from further north.

Some of the attacks have been blamed on Fulani herdsmen, said by the indigenes to be seeking reprisals since the death of their chief in the Jos conflict. The herdsmen in turn accuse the local people of giving them ultimatums to leave what had for decades been their traditional grazing areas.