Bandits Invade Benue IDP Camp, Kill 2 On Farm Lands

Armed men on Thursday invaded farmlands and killed two IDP farmers in the Umogidi community in Otukpo Local Government Area of Benue State.

Two other community members were injured and another was abducted by the bandits in the renewed attack, said to be aimed at displacing the people from their ancestral home.

According to locals, who did not want to be named, the deceased recently fled their homes due to a similar attack but decided to go to their farms in Umogidi when they were killed on Thursday.

The other three were also said to be on their farms when the bandits attacked them and whisked away one of them while the other two were reported to have been injured.

One of the locals who spoke to journalists on the phone on Thursday said, “They (bandits) are now demanding N5m as ransom for the kidnapped victims.

“All of these victims are IDPs who went to fetch food in their farms and were attacked by the same armed herders who chased them away from home in the first place.”

Confirming the incident to the press on Thursday, the Caretaker Chairman of Otukpo LGA, Alfred Oketa Omakwu, said the victims were IDPs who went to the farm on Wednesday but were attacked.