About 250 houses were set ablaze on Thursday, May 28, 2019 by not less than 500 gunmen who attacked Shonong village in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State.
The attack which took residents unawares as they were preparing to go to bed, happened at about 9:00 pm.
Isaac Kashwun, one of the residents revealed that the gunmen arrived as they used and commenced sporadic shootings to announce their presence.
“We sent a distress call to the special task force in charge of the village and the security agent asked us to escape to safer places claiming that they did not have the power to confront the gunmen in case they came back in the night”, Kawhun said.
“As a result of this, all the villagers left their houses and took refuge in neigbouring villages.
“In the middle of the night, the gunmen returned and set all the houses ablaze.
“Some house where relief materials were kept for onward distribution to victims of the earlier attacks were also looted by the attackers while they set the remaining ones ablaze.
“Over 1,000 residents who fled their homes are now sleeping in primary schools in neighbouring villages. “
Mrs. Josephine Piyo, Chairman of Riyom Local Government Area, intended visiting the village to asses the extent of the damage but was turned back by task force.
The task force turned her down in a bid to guarantee her safety in the affected village.
She angrily expressed her displeasure over what she described as persistent attacks on the local government by gunmen.
“In the past two months, over 10 villages in my local government have been attacked and many people killed, yet security personnel are here watching without doing anything to defend the people or arrest the gunmen,” She said.
