No less than 18 individuals were executed and handfuls injured in conflicts in Niger between dairy cattle herders and agriculturists, authorities said, including that ladies and youngsters were among the dead.
The viciousness commenced on Tuesday morning after a group of steers meandered into a rancher’s field and harmed the oat trim, a neighborhood official said, requesting that not be named.
Such clashes are not unusual in drought-hit Niger, where food shortages and scarce water supplies inflame tensions, especially during the harvest, which coincides with cattle being moved to pasture.
“The clashes were unusually violent, it was very barbaric,” the official told AFP.
“It was the death of the owner of the field, in the first argument, that set things off,” he added.
He said a significant number of women and children were killed, without providing a precise toll.
The interior ministry said 18 people were killed and another 43 wounded in the clashes, which happened in the western Tahoua region, adding that homes were also set on fire.
It said in a statement that security forces had restored order and an investigation was under way, while calling for calm.
The clashes come nearly two years after 10 people were killed in the same region in similar clashes between cattle herders and farmers.
