2022 Plateau State massacres

On the afternoon of 10 April 2022, a gang of bandits, believed to be Fulani herdsmen, attacked nine villages in the Kanam and Wase local government areas of Plateau State, Nigeria. According to Wikipedia's summary of the event, the attackers killed more than 150 people across the series of attacks and kidnapped about 70 others. Gunmen also torched and looted houses during the rampage. Victims were buried in mass graves in Kanam.

The attack occurred amid a broader context of instability in Nigeria, which has been affected by several low-intensity conflicts, including the Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009 and the Nigerian bandit conflict that began in 2011. Bandit attacks had increased in frequency in the early 2020s. In the week preceding the Plateau State attacks, bandits carried out a major assault on a military base in Kaduna State that killed 15 soldiers, and a separate attack on a harvest festival killed 17 people. A few weeks earlier, an attack on a train bound for Kaduna killed upwards of 60 passengers. On the same day as the Plateau State massacres, bandits killed 15 people in an unrelated incident in a village in Chikun, Kaduna State; among the dead was local community leader Isiaku Madaki, who had been installed in his position less than a day before.

Casualty figures for the Plateau State attacks varied significantly across reporting sources. Initial reports and authorities put the death toll at at least 50. Witnesses told the Associated Press that the toll was more than 100, with some estimates placing it as high as 130. On 11 April, Voice of America reported at least 70 people had been killed. Vanguard reported at least 78 people killed in Kanam and another 15 in Chikun during the attacks.

In response, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari vowed there would be "no mercy" for the perpetrators of the attacks. However, leaders of the affected local communities called for his resignation, citing his administration's failure to maintain order and security in the region.

No specific individuals have been publicly named as charged or convicted in connection with these attacks based on available source material. The case remains part of the broader, ongoing Nigerian bandit conflict, and specific accountability outcomes for this incident are not detailed in the available sourcing.