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NIGERIA: Attack by armed group claims 15 lives in Plateau

LAGOS, 29 July (IRIN) - At least 15 people died when an armed group launched an attack on policemen deployed to trouble spots in Nigeria's central Plateau State, police sources said on Saturday.

Plateau State's commissioner of police, Innocent Ilozuoke, told reporters that scores of armed men suspected of being from Niger and Chad fired on anti-riot policemen in the state's Wase District on 23 and 24 July, "but they were overpowered by my men". He said one policeman, five civilians and nine of the attackers were killed while three of the latter were captured and were being interrogated.

The motive of the attackers was not immediately clear, but in recent years there have been many reports of former rebels from Niger and Chad crossing into Nigeria and Cameroon to engage in banditry.

Last week's incident adds a new dimension to intermittent communal unrest that has rocked Plateau State since September 2001, when fighting between Muslims and Christians in the capital, Jos, resulted in the loss of over 1,000 lives. Clashes that have occurred this year in parts of the state have pitted indigenous people, most of them Christian, against more recent Muslim settlers from farther north. This is the first reported incident involving foreign elements.

The governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, appealed on Sunday for the National Emergency Management Agency to help the state's authorities to deal with thousands of people displaced by the clashes. "We have spent so much to cater for victims of these clashes, in terms of provision of shelter, food and other materials for their rehabilitation," he said. "These have overstretched our lean resources and we are being weighed down."

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