The Kaduna State Government on Friday said no fewer than 1,837 persons were killed in the state in the last 18 months. It said 1,192 persons were killed in 2021 alone while 645 persons had been killed between January and June 2022.
The Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, disclosed these in a post on his Facebook page on Friday. The revelation was part of his earlier address at the public presentation of peace reports on ‘Southern Kaduna Pilot Peace Project on Inter-religious Harmony’ in the state.
He said the event was organised by the Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation and the British High Commission.
Aruwan stated, “Besides the rural banditry confronting most states in the Northwest, another layer to the general insecurity is violence stemming from a lack of recourse to the law in some mixed communities. Grievances and mutual distrust in these areas are fed into the intermittent attacks by armed bandits, leading to reprisals, and cycles of ethno-religious or political violence.
“Clashes between farming communities and herder communities also add a critical dimension to insecurity, as they can trigger conflict directly, or spiral into the involvement of armed criminals.
“The Kaduna State Government is acutely aware of the devastating impact that conflict and violence have had on communities. In 2021, 1,192 people lost their lives in Kaduna State due to banditry, terrorism, communal clashes, violent attacks and reprisals; 406 of these lives were lost in the Southern Kaduna general area, mostly through killings and counter-killings.
“In the first six months of 2022, 645 people lost their lives in such circumstances across the state; 234 of these occurred in the Southern Kaduna area. Besides the loss of life and limb, there are the grim socio-economic effects of violence, eroding the viability of affected communities. Food insecurity is a close reality in frontline areas where farmers are threatened and attacked by bandits.”
He appealed for an extension of the operations of the Multinational Joint Task Force to cover international borders spanning the North-West and North-Central parts of the country from their existing operations in the international borders around the North-East.
