Police in Nigeria’s central Plateau state \u200csaid on Tuesday that 20 people had been killed in a weekend attack \u200bon a community in Bokkos \u200bdistrict, the latest in a region \u2060plagued by\u00a0communal attacks,\u00a0despite repeated security \u200bdeployments and government vows to stem \u200bthe attacks.<\/p>\n
Plateau is one of several ethnically and religiously diverse hinterland states known as the \u200bMiddle Belt, where communal conflict has \u200bclaimed hundreds of lives in recent years.<\/p>\n
Plateau police \u200cspokesperson \u2060Alfred Alabo said officers, working with other security agencies, engaged the attackers in a “fierce gun battle” early morning \u200bon Sunday \u200bbefore \u2060they fled.<\/p>\n
Eighteen people were killed at the scene and two \u200bdied later in hospital, Alabo \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Plateau \u2060police commissioner Bassey Ewah has ordered additional deployments to the area including \u2060more \u200btactical and mobile police \u200bunits, Alabo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police in Nigeria’s central Plateau state \u200csaid on Tuesday that 20 people had been killed in a weekend attack \u200bon a community in Bokkos \u200bdistrict, the latest in a region \u2060plagued by\u00a0communal attacks,\u00a0despite repeated security \u200bdeployments and government vows to stem \u200bthe attacks. Plateau is one of several ethnically and religiously diverse hinterland states known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[175,3937],"class_list":["post-21202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-plateau-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21203,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21202\/revisions\/21203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}