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Barkin Ladi, Plateau State – By Prime Brief Media

Gunmen attacked mourners gathered for a mass burial in the Nding Fan District of Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, Plateau State, on Wednesday, leaving an unconfirmed number of people feared dead and many others wounded, according to multiple eyewitness accounts.

The mourners were burying seven individuals killed in an earlier assault on the community when the attackers, who had been observing the ceremony from surrounding hills, descended on the gathering and opened fire. Vanguard reports that those present included women, children and the elderly.

Masara Kim, a local journalist who witnessed the attack, told Vanguard that the assailants began shooting as the mourners were digging graves. “There is an ongoing, massive attack on communities south of Jos. More than five communities are under simultaneous assault,” Kim said. He reported that a man was shot dead in his presence and that local defenders armed with hunting rifles were quickly overwhelmed by the superior firepower of the attackers.

Rwang Tengwong, publicity secretary of the Berom Youth Moulders Association, described the situation as “terrible” and said frantic efforts were under way to rescue persons trapped in the area. He appealed for immediate deployment of reinforcements, saying the attackers continued to move from one village to another as night fell.

No official casualty figure had been confirmed by security agencies at the time of this briefing, and neither Operation Enduring Peace nor the Plateau State Police Command had issued a statement. Prime Brief Media is working to independently verify the full scale of the atrocity and will provide updates as official information becomes available.

The attack is the latest and most brazen in a cycle of violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in Berom communities since late 2025. It comes less than a week after gunmen killed five people in the same Fan District on 3 May and only a day after a coalition of Berom groups decried what it called a “genocidal campaign” against its people. The resort to striking a burial gathering, an event protected by the most sacred norms of reverence, marks a grim escalation in both the ruthlessness of the attackers and the sense of vulnerability enveloping rural communities.

Prime Brief Media will continue to track security and rescue efforts across the state as this story develops.

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