Many people were feared dead following ethnic clashes in Takum and Kurmi local government areas of Taraba State.
According to a police report, policemen, who were on peace mission in the area, were also overpowered by a militia group, who killed three of them and stole their rifles.
Trouble started on Saturday, March 26, 2022, when security agents stopped procession of Kutep cultural group in Takum town.
The cultural group procession, it was gathered, was part of Kutep annual cultural day.
The planners of cultural day reportedly ignored the orders of the security agents and went ahead with their procession, leading to confrontation between them and security agents.
Daily Trust gathered that the confrontation later turned into an ethnic crisis between Kutep and Jukuns, leading to killing of many people and burning of several residential buildings in the town.
Bala John, a resident of Takum, disclosed that three natives of Kutep were gunned down by the security agents during the confrontation.
He further stated that gunshots were heard in the night on Friday at different locations in the town and many corpses were found in the bush outside Takum.
He said curfew was enforced on the town, which helped in controlling escalation of the crisis.
In Bissaula, it was also learnt that many people were killed when a militia group attacked Ichen tribe in the town.
The militia group were said to be operating from Cameroon border.
The militia, it was further learnt, were used by a party in the Ndaka and Ichen ethnic crisis in Kurmi Local Government Area which had claimed several lives in the past three months.
However, further findings revealed that normalcy was gradually returning to both Bissaula and Takum towns.
Usman Abdullahi, a spokesperson for the Taraba State Police Command, said in Takum town, normalcy had been restored while the curfew was still in force.
He said, however, the police had no record of the casualty in Takum, but several arrests were made.
Usman also said that re-enforcement was dispatched to Bissaula town to restore peace and order while manhunt for killers of three mobile Policemen had begun.
According to him, “the policemen who were on peace mission in the area were overpowered by a militia group and killed and their rifles stolen.”
He said the state police commissioner had directed that killers of the three mobile Policemen in Bissaula must be fished out and made to face the law.
