Tension has gripped Rachas Village in Heipang District, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, following the killing of an 18-year-old vigilante member, Divine Dung Davou, by gunmen during a midnight attack.\n<\/p>\n
The incident, which occurred at about 12:30am on Tuesday, has thrown the community into mourning and renewed fears over insecurity in rural communities.\n<\/p>\n
The National Publicity Secretary of the Berom Youth Moulders Association, Rwang Tengwong, confirmed the killing in a statement on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cAccording to information available to the Association, Divine, who was a vigilante member of the community, was killed at about 12:30 am during a midnight attack by armed men.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tengwong said the killing had devastated the victim\u2019s family and the entire Rachas community.<\/p>\n
Residents who spoke on the incident described the late Divine as a committed youth who volunteered to protect his community.\n<\/p>\n
A community leader in Rachas, who pleaded anonymity, said, \u201cWe are heartbroken. Divine was just 18 years old. He joined the vigilante to protect our village because we have no security presence here at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow he has been killed while trying to protect us. The government should not abandon us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Another resident, Mrs Mary Chollom, said fear had returned to the village. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe could not sleep last night. The gunshots were too much. We are mostly farmers, and we live in fear.\n<\/p>\n
\u201c If our vigilante who protects us is killed like this, who will protect us? We are calling on the government to deploy security personnel to this area,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
A youth in the community, Mr Dalyop Gyang, also called for justice.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cDivine was our brother and a brave young man. He did not deserve to die this way. We want the killers to be arrested, and we want stronger security patrols. We cannot continue to lose our youths to gunmen,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
In its reaction, the BYM called for urgent security intervention.<\/p>\n
Tengwong said, \u201cBYM calls on the Plateau State Police Command and other security agencies to urgently investigate the killing, apprehend the perpetrators and strengthen security patrols, intelligence gathering and rapid response mechanisms in vulnerable communities.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe urge the Plateau State and Federal Governments to move beyond routine assurances and implement concrete, sustained measures to protect lives and property, particularly in communities repeatedly exposed to attacks.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He further said, \u201cBYM extends its condolences to the bereaved family and the people of Rachas, while appealing for urgent action to prevent further loss of lives.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Efforts to get the reaction of the Plateau State Police Command were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.\n <\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
Tension has gripped Rachas Village in Heipang District, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, following the killing of an 18-year-old vigilante member, Divine Dung Davou, by gunmen during… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}