No fewer than eight persons were shot and killed between Saturday and Sunday in two local government areas of Riyom and Barkin Ladi of Plateau State.
The Saturday night shooting occurred in the Rawuru neighbourhood of Barkin Ladi, where one person was killed.
The Riyom event occurred on Sunday night in Kuru Station, where two people were killed, and Kwi, where one corpse was picked up, while four people were killed at the Heipang hamlet of Barkin Ladi.
A resident of Rawuru, Micah, said the Saturday incident occurred at 8 p.m., and claimed the life of one “Dachung Luka, who was shot dead at the Rawuru junction.”
On Sunday night at 8.23 p.m., some armed men in transit shot at and killed two people at Kuru Station, as residents also discovered a corpse at the Kwi community on Monday morning.
It was not confirmed whether the deceased was killed by the same armed men at Kuru Station.
The Heipang incident, where four young men were killed, took place at 9 p.m., and the deceased has been buried.
Although the Police spokesman, Alfred Alabo, could not be reached at press time, the spokesman of Operation Safe Haven, OpSH keeping the peace in the state, Capt. Oya James said personnel of the OpSH were on the trail of the culprits.
His words: “People say there was an attack on communities but that is not the situation. Before our men got there, the people had left. They said they passed through the road and shot sporadically into the air and in the process, bullets hit and killed one person but at Kwi this morning, the Commander was called that there was a corpse found there.
“Nobody knows if they were the same people that passed through that axis or a different group. They did not swoop on the communities. Since Sunday, our men are there, they wanted to evacuate the corpses but the locals refused. Our men are in pursuit of the assilants.”