Blood flow as Ebonyi, Cross River communities go to war

www.odogwublog.com reports that at least nine persons including a pregnant woman have been reported killed as Ofioji, Izzi  local government area of Ebonyi and their
Ijutun-Idoru of Obubura council area of Cross River State renewed
hostilities over boundary disputes.

Though information was still sketchy as at the time of this report, it
was gathered that the people of Ijutun-Odoru in Cross River allegedly
invaded Ofioji Izzi community at the wee hours of Friday, shooting
sporadically and kiling about nine persons and burnt over 56 houses.

Addressing journalists yesterday at their hideout where they were
taking refuge, the head of  Ofioji, community, Chief Nwobegu Mbam
painted a gory picture of how they were slaughtered by the Cross
River militia whom he described as callous and called on the state and
federal governments to come to their aid before they are completely
wiped out.

Mbam further said that during the attack, a pregnant woman he
identified as Ukamaka Nwifuru allegedly lost her life while houses
belonging to natives of the community were razed to dust by the
rampaging fighters.

"it was very late on Friday night,  we had all gone to bed but
suddenly a very terrifying sound was heard in our community and in the
ensuing confusion, we ran out only to see many houses on fire and that
was when we knew that the people of Cross River have invaded us again.
They were shooting our people without mercy; they burnt our houses and
Carted away our property”

Meanwhile over 58 lives have been lost while more than 1000 houses
have been reportedly burnt since the crisis erupted.

When contacted, the Chief Press Secretary to the Ebonyi State
Governor, Emmanuel Uzor described the incident as barbaric and called
on the law enforcement agencies to investigate the level of
involvement of a former minority leader in the Cross River State House
of Assembly, one Alex Irek who had allegedly been earlier indicted by
a white paper on the origin of the intractable crisis in the two
communities.

Uzor who said it was height of idiocy to link Ebonyi State governor to
the crisis called for the arrest of the former lawmaker for allegedly
arming his constituents to go into war with their neighbouring Ebonyi
community.

“The Governor made a passionate appeal to the Chief of Army Staff, Lt
Gen Tukur Buratai over the spate of killing of the people of Ebonyi
state by their Cross River counterparts. He made the supplication
which was well coded by the Chief of Army Staff and what we heard
again was this provocative carnage and wanton killing of our people by
the Cross River people and a former lawmaker could descend so low to
say that the crisis came as a result of Governor Umahi’s appeal for
help and deployment of more soldiers”