Gunmen kill more than 20 people in an overnight house-to-house attack on Binper community, Mangu LGA, Plateau State, the second mass-casualty attack in the same LGA within 48 hours.
Mangu, Plateau State — August 18, 2026
More than 20 people have been killed and several others injured after gunmen attacked Binper community in Kombun District, Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, in an assault that began around midnight Monday and continued into the early hours of Tuesday.
According to residents, the attackers were heavily armed and moved through the community from house to house, forcing their way into homes and attacking occupants as they slept.
An eyewitness, Daniel Musa, said residents had confirmed more than 20 deaths by Tuesday morning, with several others seriously injured and some people still unaccounted for as the community worked to determine the full scale of the loss.
The Binper attack comes barely a day after a separate assault on Jwak Maitumbi community, also in Mangu LGA, which residents say killed as many as 30 people and destroyed more than 50 houses, shops, churches, and health facilities.
A youth leader from that community alleged that repeated distress calls to security personnel went unanswered while the attack was still under way, with soldiers arriving only after the attackers had already withdrawn.
Together, the two attacks point to a rapidly escalating security crisis in Mangu LGA, an area that has a long, painful history of large-scale religious violence, including a 2023 massacre that killed well over 100 people and a Christmas Eve 2025 attack that claimed 19 lives in the LGA as part of a wider, deadlier assault across three Plateau council areas.
Another resident, John Dalyop, described the Binper attack as barbaric and appealed directly to Plateau's newly appointed Commissioner of Police to act decisively against those responsible. He and other residents urged both the state and Federal Governments to urgently reinforce security around vulnerable communities in Mangu and across the wider LGA.
The Mwaghavul Youth Movement has separately demanded a transparent investigation into the Binper killings and the broader pattern of attacks in Mangu LGA, insisting that those responsible be identified and prosecuted.
The group said the recurring killings and destruction of farmland could no longer be treated as routine incidents, and called on government to take decisive action to end the ongoing cycle of violence.
Security operatives were reportedly deployed to Binper on Tuesday morning to restore calm and prevent further attacks, though efforts to obtain an official reaction from security agencies had been unsuccessful as of this report.
Injured victims have been taken to nearby hospitals for treatment, while community leaders continue efforts to account for those still missing.
The back-to-back attacks are likely to intensify pressure on Plateau State's security architecture, coming just weeks after the state unveiled a food security plan aimed partly at addressing the agricultural fallout of sustained insecurity, and amid an ongoing regional debate over the Federal Government's proposed ranching policy for the Middle Belt.
More on Plateau