At least 63 killed in Nigerian clashes

A curfew was imposed in an ethnically mixed area of Nigeria on Sunday following the deaths of more than 60 people in clashes a day earlier.                   

State television broadcast video on Sunday showing a heavily armed police convoy in the Barkin Ladi district of Plateau state where the government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew along with three other government zones.                        

The clashes on Saturday between security forces and armed Fulani herdsmen erupted after the military said they intervened during fighting between Fulani migrants and indigenous tribes in the Barkin Ladi district.                        

A spokesman for the Fulani said the military opened fire because the government favors the indigenous tribes.                    

On Sunday, a Nigerian senator and several other people were killed when gunmen attacked a mass burial for 63 victims of previous day's violence, a government official said. Senator Gyang Dantong of the ruling People's Democratic Party and a state lawmaker were among several people shot dead while attending the burial, officials said.                        

Burials were also under way in other parts of the state and the final death toll is likely to be higher Plateau is in the "Middle Belt", where the largely Christian south meets the mostly Muslim north.                      

It has for years been a tinderbox of ethnic and religious rivalries over fertile land and power between local people and migrants from other areas.       

Reuters