Forty-two people have been killed in four communities in central Nigeria in attacks blamed on itinerant herders, in the latest wave of violence that continues to upend life in the rural region. Reuters reports quote a local official, Victor Omnin, the chair of the Gwer West local government area in Benue state, as saying 10 people were killed in a Saturday attack on the villages of Tyolaha and Tse-Ubiam. Thirty-two others were killed the following day in a separate attack in the nearby Ahume and Aondona villages. “It’s a pathetic situation,” Omnin told the press on Tuesday. “As we speak, we are still recovering corpses.” According to Reuters, a Catholic priest was also shot in the area by the assailants, and the office of the Benue governor, Hyacinth Iormem Alia, who is also a priest, said he had been wounded and was in a critical but stable condition. They killed women and even children as young as two years old,” one resident of the area told the Daily Trust, which focuses on northern Nigeria. Parts of central and north-western Nigeria have experienced waves of violent attacks as itinerant Fulani herders and Indigenous farmers clash when cows often left to graze openly sometimes stray on to farms.

Full report : At least 42 killed in weekend attacks in Nigeria’s Benue state in a fight between two gangs, local official says.