Barely two weeks after a Benue Links bus was ambushed on the Makurdi-Naka road in Benue, another bus was ambushed in the late hours of Tuesday on the same route and spot.

One of the passengers aboard the ambushed bus, Francis Ugbede, spoke with The Guardian in hushed tones before his phone was switched off.

Ugbede said their vehicle ran into an ambush ‘just after where they sell roasted yams’, and three passengers were hurriedly abducted before soldiers could respond to the distress calls and rescue the remaining passengers.

According to him, the affected vehicle did not belong to Benue Links bus service.

Recall that in the previous attack involving Benue Links bus, one person was killed, while all the passengers were taken away. At press time, none of the passengers has been released.

Meanwhile the security situation in Benue State is taking a plunge for the worse as bandits and suspected armed herdsmen have continued to attack and kill defenceless farmers unchallenged.

Apart from the ambushed vehicle on Tuesday, a farmer at Goh village in Gwer West Local Council was attacked same day on his way to his farm and macheted to death, while his wife was ‘brutalised’. The woman is currently receiving medical attention at an undisclosed medical facility at Naka, the council headquarters.

Similarly, three fishermen were killed on Monday by suspected armed herdsmen at Tse Hambe, in the same Gwer West council.

According to an eyewitness, the fishermen were carrying out their trade when the attackers swooped on them without warning. Three of them were killed instantly, while the remaining four escaped.

As in Goh, the remains of the fishermen are yet to be recovered.

An indigene, Andrew Adoka told The Guardian that the villagers were scared of venturing into the bush unarmed for fear of the attackers.

Adoka said personnel of the Operation Whirlstroke, the army special task force stationed in the area, have been approached to lead the villagers into the bush to retrieve the bodies of their kinsmen.

When contacted, spokesperson for Benue State Police Command, Superintendent of Police (SP), Catherine Anene, said she was not yet to be officially briefed on the latest bus attack and other killings in the state.

On efforts to apprehend members of the Otukpo multiple bank robbery gang, she said though no new arrest has been made after the initial four, the police have intensified the manhunt for the fleeing robbers.