No fewer than four youths have been killed in Plateau State following an attack by gunmen in Bokkos Local Government Areas of the state on Friday night.
It was discovered that the victims were working at a mining site in the Batura community when gunmen assaulted them at 9 p.m., killing four people on the spot.
Sabastine Magit, President of the Butura Youth Movement, confirmed the killings in a statement issued Saturday.
Magit stated that the gunman injured five additional people during the attack before fleeing the scene.
The youth leader identified those deceased as Bwefuk Musa, 21, Klingshak Dickson, 21, Promise Joshua, 20, and Nyam Abaka, 20.
The statement read, “In yet another unprovoked assault on members of the Butura community, armed terrorists, speaking the Fulani dialect, opened fire on innocent youths working at a mining site near the villages of Kuba and Maikatako in the Butura district of Bokkos Local Government Area in Plateau State on October 10.
“The attack was carried out at approximately 9 p.m. without any provocation, leading to the death of four innocent people and the injury of five others.
“This attack occurred just four days after a tragic incident in the village of Wumat, where five members of a family, including a pregnant mother, lost their lives.
“Eyewitnesses report that the assailants executed a lightning-fast operation on October 10, fleeing the scene before military personnel stationed at a nearby checkpoint could respond.
“Tragically, four individuals were killed instantly, and five others sustained injuries. The deceased are: Bwefuk Musa, 21 years; Klingshak Dickson, 21 years; Promise Joshua, 20 years; and Nyam Abaka, 20 years.”
The statement stated that the assassination of the four boys was the latest in a series of unprovoked attacks on their community, with over 20 members killed in the last month alone, all of which were ascribed to identifiable Fulani assailants.
When contacted, the Plateau State Command’s spokesman, Alabo Alfred, and the spokesman for the Military Taskforce in charge of maintaining peace in the state, Major Samson Zhakom, as well as the state Commissioner for Information, Musa Ashoms, were unavailable to comment on the incident as several phone calls rang out.
