YELWATA: The gunmen attacked after dark and chased farmer Fidelis Adidi away from the central Nigerian village of Yelwata. The next morning, he returned to find the charred remains of one of his two wives and four of his children.

They had been living in a room he had rented in the market, in an attempt to keep them safe from a wave of clashes between cattle herders and farmers in the country’s Middle Belt region.

His second wife and another child were badly wounded in the assault that began on Friday night and, according to Amnesty International, killed around 100 people in the town in Benue region.

“My body is weak and my heart keeps racing,” the 37-year-old told Reuters as he stood outside the room, surveying the damage. “I lost five of my family members.” In another room in the market, bodies lay burned beyond recognition next to blackened piles of food and farm equipment.

Authorities have struggled to contain the violence that has simmered for years, fuelled by competition over land as well as ethnic and religious divisions.

President Bola Tinubu — who called the recent upsurge in attacks “depressing” on Monday — is due to visit Benue on Wednesday, his first visit there since coming to office two years ago.

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said it was working with aid agencies to help at least 3,000 people displaced by the violence in a territory where the majority Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Market trader Talatu Agauta, who is pregnant with her second child, fled when the attackers came on Friday night and took refuge in the state capital Markudi. She came back over the weekend to find 40 bags of her rice had been burned. A devastating blow, but not enough to drive her from her home.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2025