Village mob kills 8 wedding guests after series of attacks

JOS - Villagers in central Nigeria's volatile Plateau state attacked a bus carrying mostly Muslim wedding guests and killed eight people amid tensions in the region, a local official and a survivor said on Saturday.

Residents in the area had been on edge after a series of bloody attacks in recent days, with ethnic Fulani nomadic Muslim herders suspected of killing dozens of people in Plateau's Mangu local government area.

Fulani herders in the state have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, over access to land and resources.

Earlier this month, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered a crackdown on violence in the region.

Ibrahim Umar, who survived Friday's attack, said the 31 people aboard the bus were travelling from Zaria to Qua'an Pan for a wedding ceremony when their driver got lost and stopped to ask for directions.

"We approached a community at about 6 p.m., stopped and asked for the way to Qua'an Pan. Some of them said: 'these are Hausa people so let us kill them'," he told AFP by phone from a hospital, where he is being treated.

"They seized the bus that we were in, they started smashing it with sticks, machetes and stones. They beat us and eight among us died," he said, adding that four people were still missing.

The bus and seven bodies were set on fire, he said.

Mangu local government council chairman, Emmanuel Bala, told AFP local villagers had been on high alert following the recent wave of attacks.

"It is unfortunate that innocent people, Hausa Muslims, were attacked and killed," he said, adding that they had been attacked by "a mob".

"Eight people were confirmed dead, I personally went to the place," he said.