More than 100 people have been shot dead by rampaging soldiers in central Nigeria in the latest unrest in the crisis-torn west African country, a government spokesman said yesterday.
The reprisal attacks on Monday and Tuesday night came after 19 soldiers were killed by ethnic militiamen two weeks ago near the border of the south central states of Benue and Taraba. The soldiers' corpses were mutilated.
The soldiers were buried on Monday in the capital Abuja, with an order by President Olusegun Obasanjo that their killers should be found and brought to book.
A lorry full of soldiers on Monday began two days of retaliatory attacks on Anyiin, Gbeji, Iorja and Vaase - border towns of Benue and Taraba States - and shot dead more than 100 residents, the spokesman said.
Mr Obasanjo has not yet reacted to the massacres carried out by the military but Nigerian defence headquarters has denied ordering the soldiers to launch the attacks.
"Nobody deployed soldiers to fight in Benue; nobody gave them the orders," a defence spokesman, Mr Ganiyu Adewale, said.
Residents fleeing the affected four villages said the attackers were soldiers, according to Mr Francis Ikwur, a resident in Makurdi, capital of Benue State.
A Benue police spokesman, Mr Emmanuel Deebom, confirmed the shooting.
He said his men were investigating the incident.