Armed assailants launched a brutal attack after nightfall in the central Nigerian village of Yelwata, forcing farmer Fidelis Adidi to flee. When he returned the next morning, he discovered the charred remains of one of his two wives and four of his children.
Adidi had rented a room in the local market to shelter his family from the escalating clashes between cattle herders and farmers in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. Despite his efforts, the violence claimed his loved ones—his second wife and another child were severely injured in the assault.
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According to Amnesty International, the attack, which began on Friday night, left approximately 100 people dead in Benue state.
“My body is weak, and my heart won’t stop pounding,” the 37-year-old told Reuters, standing outside the burned room where his family had sought safety. “I lost five of them.”
Nearby, other market rooms held unrecognizable burned bodies alongside scorched piles of food and farming tools.
The Nigerian government has faced mounting challenges in curbing the long-simmering violence, driven by disputes over land, ethnicity, and religion.
President Bola Tinubu, who described the recent surge in attacks as “depressing,” is scheduled to visit Benue on Wednesday—his first trip to the region since taking office two years ago.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency is collaborating with aid groups to assist at least 3,000 people displaced by the violence in an area where the predominantly Muslim north borders the largely Christian south.
Among the survivors is Talatu Agauta, a pregnant market trader who fled to the state capital, Makurdi, when the attackers struck. Returning days later, she found 40 bags of her rice destroyed—a crippling loss, but not enough to make her abandon her home.
