Terrorists Kill 17 Returning IDPs In Fresh Taraba Attack, Burn Houses In Deadly Bid To Stop Resettlement
Seventeen internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning to their ancestral homes were ambushed and massacred by suspected Fulani militias on Wednesday in Tse Ajogo village, Takum Local Government Area of Taraba State.
The victims – mostly women, children and elderly men – had left the relative safety of displacement camps in nearby Benue and Taraba states, hoping to begin rebuilding their lives after years of forced exile.
Eyewitnesses told SaharaReporters that the attackers, armed with AK-47 rifles and machetes, laid in wait along the bush path leading to the village.
As the returnees approached in a convoy of motorcycles and on foot, the gunmen opened fire without warning.“They shot anyone who tried to run.
Those who fell and pretended to be dead were hacked with cutlasses,” said a survivor who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“They were shouting that no Tiv person will ever live in this land again.”Eight people sustained serious gunshot wounds and are receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital.
Several others remain unaccounted for.
After the killings, the attackers reportedly set seven houses ablaze and warned neighbouring communities against allowing displaced Tiv families to resettle.
This is the second massacre targeting returning IDPs in the same area within two months. In October 2025, 23 people were killed in a similar ambush in nearby Kashimbila.
The renewed violence has dashed hopes of lasting peace in southern Taraba, where farmer-herder clashes and ethnic land disputes have claimed thousands of lives and displaced over 300,000 people since 2018.
Local leaders accused the militias of deliberately sabotaging government and NGO-backed resettlement programmes.
“They don’t want us to come back. Burning the houses is a message: if you rebuild, we will return,” said Mr. David Ugah, chairman of a local vigilante group.
The Taraba State Police Command confirmed the attack. Police spokesman DSP Gambo Kwache said security forces have been deployed to the area and investigations are ongoing.
“Normalcy is gradually returning. We are on the trail of the perpetrators,” Kwache said.
However, residents and civil society groups expressed outrage at what they described as the federal and state governments’ failure to protect vulnerable communities.
