No fewer than five soldiers have been reportedly killed and two others kidnapped after suspected herdsmen clashed with some personnel in Logo LGA of Benue State, yesterday.
The attackers also burnt down Army patrol vehicles during the clash.
It was gathered that the herdsmen had wanted to attack a village in Logo but where foiled by the Army men.
A youth leader who spoke to newsmen under condition of anonimity said that the attackers also burnt one of the patrol vehicle of the soldiers leaving some of them with serious injuries while others were taken captive by the attackers.
According to the source, “That community is a Tiv/Jukun settlement and it is a border community where you can hardly draw a border line between Benue and Taraba states. “From what we have gathered so far, two of the soldiers were killed some where taken alive and one of their patrol vehicles was also burnt.
“Though we had that some of the soldiers were still unaccounted for which means that the casualty figure might be higher when the true picture of the attack becomes clearer.” When contacted, the Chairman of Logo local government area, Mr. Richard Nyajo confirmed the attack. Nyajo said, “the incident happened this morning (Sunday) at about 7 to 8am.
“It happened in Logo local government area. I gave them a base at Gov in Mbagegh Council ward of Logo local government. So in the course of carrying out their peace keeping operation, they went into the bush and I don’t know whether the herdsmen heard about them, they came behind and entangled them and opened fire on them.
“They burnt one of their patrol vehicles, injured some of them, took some alive and killed one person but the second person was seriously injured and might not make it alive because he was in bad shape.
“Though one was said to be missing but by tomorrow we will get a clearer picture of the situation including the actual number of deaths because when an attack scatter a group of people like it happened and some are missing you cannot just conclude on the casualty figure.
“But surely some were killed and some were abducted. Though many among those that were missing escaped alive. But by tomorrow we will get a clearer picture of the situation.” All efforts to confirm the incident from the operational base of the Operation Whirl Stroke failed as the personnel who picked the call in one of their dedicated numbers refused to confirm the attack.
