Residents in Binnari, a rural town in Nigeria’s Taraba state, put the death toll from a Friday attack at 50, as police searched Sunday and Amnesty International Nigeria reported 52.
Resident Bashir Mamuda Musa told AFP that seven bodies were recovered on Friday, Oct. 23, after the attack. He said another 43 were located in a river Saturday, lifting the community tally to 50. Resident Abdullahi Zakari confirmed that count to AFP and said women and children were among those who ran toward the river while escaping.
Taraba State police spokesman Victor Msheliza told AFP that officers had recovered some bodies from the river and were continuing to search the area Sunday. He said police sent officers after the assault and were adding more personnel. AFP said police and Amnesty both reported that some victims drowned while trying to get away.
AFP reported that armed men traveled by motorcycle to Binnari after Friday prayers. Businesses were looted, and some were set on fire. Isa Sanusi, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, told AFP that attackers pursued some residents toward the river. Amnesty said weak protection leaves rural communities exposed to gunmen and authorities’ failure to prosecute suspected attackers reinforces impunity.
AFP said Taraba lies between Nigeria’s northeast, where a long-running jihadist insurgency is active, and central areas affected by criminal gangs known as bandits. The dispatch described those groups as driven by financial gain; they kidnap for ransom and impose payments on farmers and mining operators. It also cited poor policing, stretched security forces and limited state presence in remote rural areas. Farmers and mining operations bear the cost of those levies, while residents face raids and kidnapping, AFP reported.
The new figures update a pattern of changing counts in EconoTimes’ earlier coverage of the competing death tolls from the attack.
