Residents of Mmiata-Anam in Anambra West Local Government Area of Anambra State have raised the alarm over impending scarcity of food following incessant herdsmen attacks on the community.
The community had earlier been devastated by flood.
The people alleged that apart from destroying farm produce, the cattle herders also rape women, maim and kill locals in the area.
They called on the state government to come to their rescue in order to avert the impending hunger and starvation in the community.
A community leader, Chief Matthias Ameke said the ugly experience had been on for years, expressing fears of further loss of lives and property if the trend was not checked.
He said the latest casualty was one Alex Nwokoye, who was butchered to death while waiting for a vehicle to convey him and his fishing gear.
He said, “We used to hear of herdsmen terrorising some parts of this country until when they surfaced on our land and destroyed food products, including yams, cassava, flora and fauna which they trample upon.
“As we speak now, our farms are at the verge of extermination as virtually everything has been removed. The worst of all is that last year flood ravaged our yams, cassavas, everything wasted. These people you see borrowed from banks this year to go back to farm with the seedlings purchased, land tilled, plantations done.
“These herdsmen have come and invaded every bit of the length and breadth and removed everything to the point that cassava plants were being uprooted.
“As if that was not enough, they went about raping women in their shanties. We’ve said it before and will continue to say that we are not violent people; this is one Nigeria. We need peace.
“But we say that those who are here must obey the rule of the land. We have sacred places they have soiled. Our men have been chased away and finally they have gone as far as beginning to kill our people.
Ameke continued, “Just last Friday, a man was killed with a machete in a heinous way, leaving behind nine little children. With this, our men said there is a limit to which you can run away from war particularly when it has come to your town.
“This is our hometown. We have no other place and we are going nowhere. We shall stand here if it means fighting and dying here. But we don’t want to fight.”
Meanwhile, some group of women in their hundreds barricaded the entry points to the community to prevent what they termed unlawful encroachment.
One of them, Mrs Uduaku Felicia who spoke to The Nation, said the problem started last January when they noticed the produce in their farmlands was being destroyed by the herdsmen.
“We’ve been patient with them because we don’t want any case. We give them chance to eat grass but they don’t want to. Instead, they want to be eating cassava, yam, all those things and continue killing others. So we are so very unhappy,” she said
According to Uduaku, the decision to barricade the entrance to the community was to disallow non-indigenes without check.
“We saw soldiers who came to our town on Friday. We don’t want war, we want peace. That is why we are here.
“Anybody who wants to come into Mmiata Anam we would see the person from this point. We don’t want soldiers.”
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mohammed Haruna promised to get back to the reporter, but was unable till the time of filing this report.
“I will find out and feed you back please,” he said.