Yelwa, Nigeria: At least 630 people were killed when a Christian ethnic militia attacked a Muslim community, a senior Red Cross official has confirmed.

The heavily armed Tarok gang had stormed Yelwa, a farming community in central Nigeria’s Plateau State, 300 kilometres (185 miles) east of Abuja.

“All the bodies were gathered at the traditional leader’s house and then were buried behind it,” Umar Abdu Mamairiga, the national disaster management officer for the Nigerian Red Cross, said.

“They are talking about 630, but there might be more,” he added, confirming a figure given to reporters by local councillor Yakubu Haruna, by the side of a fresh 50 metre by 10 metre burial site in the centre of the rural town.

The attack, late on Sunday, appears to be part of a continuing feud between the rival Tarok and Hausa ethnic groups that has claimed hundreds of lives in the past three years.

A Red Cross emergency team arrived in Yelwa yesterday and was immediately asked to treat several dozen people for gunshot and machete wounds.

“We buried more than 630 people,” Mr Haruna said to general agreement from a crowd of onlookers.

“Some people were buried in their backyards. They just attacked us because we are Muslims.”

The injured were mainly young men, but at least one baby had been shot through the foot and another had its jaw smashed.

A previous offical toll for the attack reported 67 dead, but Nigerian police often deliberately play down casualty figures.

One of the country’s most senior Muslim leaders has claimed that between 200 and 250 people died.

In the streets lay spent 7.62 millimetre cartridge cases of the kind used in Kalashnikov assault rifles.

The Yelwa residents said the weapons were those used by the Christian Tarok gang in the attack. (AFP)

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