11 killed in clashes between farmers and Fulani herdsmen

Clashes between nomadic herdsmen and local landowners in drought-hit Niger resulted in the death of 11 people at the weekend, a radio journalist who visited the scene told IRIN on Monday. The clashes ocurred on Saturday near Dosso, 140 km southeast of the capital Niamey, Mamadou Mamane, a local correspondent of the state-run radio station Voix du Sahel (Voice of the Sahel) told IRIN. Fighting broke out after a woman from the village of Afomata started hitting a cow belonging to a nomadic herdsman from the Fulani ethnic group when the animal had strayed from the rest of the herd to graze on her crops, Mamane said. The herdsman in charge of the cow retalliated by hitting the woman and then retreated to his camp, he added. Shortly afterwards, a crowd of villagers from Afomata attacked the Fulani settlement. Eleven people were killed and several others injured in the clash, Mamane said. “It was an apocalyptic day with dead and wounded people lying all over the bush,” he said in broadcast report after visiting the scene. Mamane told IRIN that the security forces had detained about 30 people and entire villages had been deserted as the local men fled to escape arrest. Niger’s Interior minister Mounkaila Modi visited the scene of the fighting on Monday, along with the governor of Dosso. “We greatly deplore the fact that a simple misunderstanding degenerated into intercommunal clashes,” Modi told Voix du Sahel afterwards. “All those responsible and their accomplices will have to answer for their behaviour to the courts,” he added. The interior minister urged local cattle herders and farmers to live together in peace and harmony. Fights between the two communities are common throughout southern Niger, especially around Dosso. Most of these clashes take place during the main crop growing season between June and November. One of the bloodiest clashes occurred in 1991, when more than 100 people, mostly herdsmen, were killed in a dispute over grazing rights at Toda, near Maradi in south central Niger. Tension is rising this year well ahead of the planting season as farmers and herdsmen struggle to survive following widespread damage to crops and pasture by drought and locusts in 2004. Subsistence farmers account for the majority of Niger’s 11 million population and the government estimates that 3.5 million people could face food shortages this year. Last month, Medecins Sans Frontieres reported a steep rise in malnutrition among children in the Tahoua and Maradi districts in the south of this landlocked country. Niger, a former French colony, consists largely of desert and is one of the world’s poorest countries. It ranks second from bottom in the United Nations Human Development Index.