Death Toll Rises to 150 in Benue State as Gunmen Attack Sleeping Villagers, Burn Homes and Crops

Over 100 people were killed by gunmen in YELEWATA village in BENUE state, according to Amnesty International.

At least 150 people have been confirmed dead following a deadly weekend attack by gunmen in the Yelewata community of Benue State, north-central Nigeria. Survivors continued on Monday to dig through charred remains of homes, search for missing loved ones, and bury the dead as the full scale of the massacre became clear.

The attack began late Friday night when armed assailants stormed the community under the cover of darkness. Residents, many of whom were already displaced by previous violence in the region, were sleeping in a local market when the gunmen opened fire and set buildings ablaze. Bodies were found inside burnt homes, and more than 20 were recovered as of Monday alone.

Youths protesting against the killings in Benue State

No group has claimed responsibility, but officials and local farmers suspect that armed herders were behind the killings—a reflection of the ongoing and increasingly deadly conflict between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities across Nigeria’s central and northern regions.

Benue Deputy Governor Sam Ode said the gunmen surrounded the Yelewata community, located approximately 120 kilometers from the state capital Makurdi, leaving many villagers with no escape. Survivors reported that the attackers fired from multiple directions simultaneously.

“They were coming from different sides at the same moment … it was sporadic shooting,” said Jacob Psokaa, who lost his 55-year-old father. “The situation is very bad now with many people in the ground … your people leaving you suddenly.”

The attackers also torched food stores and crops in the local market, destroying rice and yam harvests that serve as a lifeline for many in Benue, a major food-producing region. This destruction further compounds the humanitarian crisis in the state, where thousands have already been displaced by violent clashes over land and grazing rights.

Titus Tsegba, who lost his wife and four children aged between 8 and 27, described the horror of discovering their remains reduced to ashes. “Everything is gone,” he said. Tsegba survived the attack because he happened to be sleeping in another part of the village at the time.

The conflict between herders—predominantly of Fulani ethnicity—and farmers has deep historical and legal roots. While farmers accuse herders of grazing livestock on their farmland and destroying crops, herders claim the land includes grazing routes legally backed by a 1965 law.

President Bola Tinubu condemned the massacre as “senseless bloodletting,” pledging to visit the affected community on Wednesday. He called on security agencies to take immediate and decisive action.

“Enough is enough,” said Tinubu. “I have directed the security agencies to act decisively, arrest perpetrators of these evil acts on all sides of the conflict, and prosecute them.”

The incident underscores the Nigerian government’s ongoing struggle to curb insecurity and protect vulnerable rural communities caught in cycles of violence that have claimed thousands of lives in recent years.