ABUJA, April 8 (Reuters) - One army officer and 10 soldiers
were killed in Nigeria's Benue state in what a spokesman said
was an unprovoked attack on Thursday.
The army said in a statement that it would "fish out and
deal decisively with these bad elements."
Civilians, in fear of soldiers looking to root out the
perpetrators, were fleeing the Konshisha local government where
one local leader's house had been burnt to the ground, sources
told Reuters.
The violence in the restive Middle Belt region marked the
latest bout of instability in Nigeria, Africa's most-populous
nation.
On Monday, heavily armed gunman freed more than 1,800
prisoners in the southeast, while armed gangs have kidnapped
hundreds of school children in the northwest in recent months
and Islamist militants in the northeast have waged a decade-long
insurgency. Troops patrol in the Middle Belt due in part to clashes
between farmers and nomadic cattle herders that have killed
thousands and displaced half a million over the past decade,
according to estimates from French medical charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres.
Army spokesman Mohammed Yerima said the troops were
initially declared missing while on a routine operational task,
but a search-and-rescue team later found the bodies.
"Efforts are ongoing to track down the perpetrators of this
heinous crime with a view to bringing them to justice," Yerima
said in a statement.
Yerima did not immediately reply to further queries about
the attack.