At least 16 people were killed in an attack on a village near the town of Jos, in central Nigeria, an area affected by recent ethnic clashes, AFP learned on Wednesday (August 25th) from the authorities and an official. hospital.
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Jos, in Plateau State, located on a line that separates the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria from the predominantly Christian south, has been plagued by ethnic and religious violence for years.
The assailants attacked the village of Yelwa Zangam on Tuesday evening, killing residents and destroying houses, the state governor's office said in a statement, without giving an account.
An official at the Plateau hospital said at least 16 bodies of people killed in the attack were in the morgue.
A police spokesperson confirmed the attack but was unable to provide the number of victims.
"Barbaric act"
State Governor Simon Bako Lalong condemned the attack as a "
barbaric act
" and said 10 suspects had been arrested.
In a statement, he said that a bridge leading to the village had previously been destroyed by the attackers to prevent the security forces from reaching the area during the attack.
Tensions have been high in Plateau state since the death this month of at least 23 people in the attack on a convoy of Muslim pilgrims by a Christian militia.
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Police accused young Irigwe, a predominantly Christian ethnicity, of attacking this five-bus convoy with Muslim pilgrims on board, returning from the neighboring state of Bauchi where they celebrated the Islamic New Year.
A representative of the Irigwe denied any responsibility for this attack.
These tensions in central Nigeria are just one of many security challenges facing Africa's most populous country.
The security forces have also been fighting for 12 years against a jihadist insurgency in the north-east of the country, against kidnapper gangs in the north-west and separatist tendencies in the south-east.
