Gunmen Kill 22 In Plateau, Target Hospital Patients
Gunmen who stormed Kawel village in Mushere District of Bokkos Local Government Area have left at least 22 people dead, including health workers and patients shot inside a primary healthcare centre, deepening fears over the collapse of rural security in Plateau State.
The Plateau State Police Command confirmed 20 deaths, while community leaders put the figure at 22 after fresh assessments at local hospitals. In a statement, the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Alfred Alabo, said the attack occurred “in the early hours of Sunday, 21st June 2026, at about 04:40am, by a group of armed hoodlums.” The command said 18 people were confirmed dead at the scene and two others died later in hospital.
According to the police, the Commissioner of Police, CP Bassey Ewah, directed the Bokkos Divisional Police Officer to mobilise personnel, and operatives of the Violent Crime Response Unit “engaged the assailants in a fierce gun battle, forcing them to retreat.” Ewah ordered the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Operations, and the Area Commander, Pankshin, to relocate to the area, and deployed additional Mobile Force personnel for “an intensive manhunt for the perpetrators.”
A Red Cross official involved in the emergency response said the attackers targeted the community’s clinic, “killing health workers and patients receiving treatment.” The Bokkos Youth Leader, Christopher Luka, who first confirmed 19 deaths, said the toll rose to 22, with victims “yet to be buried because of the rainfall.”
The Chairman of the Community Peace Observers in Bokkos, Kefas Mallai, accused security agencies of inaction despite prior intelligence, naming Hokk, Luwa-Pan and Kadim as alleged hideouts. “The security agents are now scattered in the bushes looking for whether they can arrest any of the perpetrators,” he said. The military taskforce spokesman, Capt Chinonso Oteh, acknowledged “a security breach in the area,” adding he had not yet been fully briefed. News agency AFP, citing residents and the Bokkos council chairman Samuel Amalau, reported a toll of 21.
The killings fit a long and bloody pattern. Plateau, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, has for years recorded recurring violence widely linked to disputes between mostly Christian farmers and largely Muslim Fulani herders, intensified by shrinking farmland, climate pressure and weak policing. The latest assault came less than a week after the District Head of Gwande, Saf Samuel Alaket, was killed while returning from a traditional council meeting, and about two months after an April raid on Mbwelle village that killed eight people from one family.
The scale of the crisis is stark. Amnesty International reported that between March 2025 and April 2025, coordinated attacks hit communities including Daffo, Gwande and Manguna, and that 167 rural communities across eight local government areas were attacked over two years, displacing 65,000 people. The group also documented that at least 2,630 people were killed in Plateau in the two years to May 2025, second only to Benue. In December 2023, attacks on Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi over Christmas killed at least 140 people, while an April 2025 raid on Bassa claimed more than 50 lives.
Successive governments have promised action with little visible result. Critics, including Amnesty International’s Nigeria Director, Isa Sanusi, have repeatedly accused the authorities of failing to protect rural lives or secure convictions. With assailants again escaping before troops arrived, residents fear that without dismantling the alleged hideouts, Mushere’s communities will remain exposed to further bloodshed.