The founder of the Women Environmental Programme who has been working at the heart of numerous violent conflicts in Benue since 2001, Dr. Priscilla Achakpa, has said that women and children are the demographic hit hardest by the recent spate of killings in the state.

While speaking in an interview with Arise TV on Monday, Achakpa described the recent killings in Yelewata, a community in Benue State, as a well-planned attack, adding that the villagers knew they would be attacked but couldn’t save themselves because they were armless.

“This is a kind of a well-planned attack. These attacks have been planned and they came in different angles. Because when I was talking with the villagers, they told us they knew something like this was going to happen. So, they were a little bit prepared.

“But because they’re armless, there’s nothing or really that could be done. These people came in their thousands. And they came from four different angles. Some of them were on bikes. They had worse, I mean, worse sophisticated weapons that was killing them,” she said.

Speaking on the aftermath of the massacre and the casualties, she said that women and children are affected.

“The most annoying thing is that those who are killed are also those who have been displaced and taking refuge in these places. They’re sleeping in the stores, and they come and burn them alive. Several women, but I have all the list, most of the list of people that had died, numbering over 200. For goodness sake,” she lamented.