Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
It was a Friday evening like any other in the Mazat community of Ropp District, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State. Miners were still at work around 7 p.m., extracting tin from the earth in a desperate search for daily bread. Then the gunshots came.
Armed men, suspected by residents to be Fulani militias, stormed the mining site and opened fire on the workers without warning. When the shooting stopped, four people lay dead – among them a pregnant woman. Four others were critically injured, and the assailants fled into the surrounding bush, unchallenged by any security presence.
The attack, which occurred on Friday, 1 May 2026, has once again exposed the widening security vacuum in Plateau State’s rural mining communities. For decades, artisanal mining has provided a fragile lifeline to thousands of families in Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Jos South and other local government areas. But that lifeline has become a death trap. Miners now work under the constant threat of ambush by gunmen who steal their produce, abduct them for ransom, or simply kill them without provocation.
Amos Davou, a community member who confirmed the incident to multiple news outlets, said the attackers operated without any resistance. “The gunmen stormed the area at about 7 p.m., opened fire on victims who were engaged in mining activities, leaving multiple casualties,” he told Vanguard. By the time help arrived, the assailants had vanished into the maze of hills and forests that dot the Ropp District.
The Berom Youth Moulders Association (BYM), the apex socio-cultural group of the Berom people, reacted with fury and despair. In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Rwang Tengwong, the association condemned the killings as “barbaric and senseless.” But beyond the condemnation, the BYM issued a stark warning: the current security strategy is failing, and if nothing changes, communities may soon take up arms to defend themselves.
“It is heartbreaking that despite repeated attacks and growing concerns over insecurity in communities across Plateau State, innocent lives continue to be lost under painful circumstances such as this, where people merely went out in search of livelihood,” the BYM said in a separate statement obtained by The Sun.
The association called for a “strategic shift and redeployment of security personnel from attacked villages, communities, and checkpoints to suspected hideouts and Fulani settlements across the state.” It argued that without this change, “killings will continue to engulf Nigerians in Plateau and other Middle Belt States, where networks of killer-Fulani militants and their cohorts are gaining momentum and wreaking devastation.”
The BYM also raised alarm over the destruction of farmlands in Jol village, Riyom Local Government Area, by “another gang of terrorists allegedly accompanying Fulani cattle rearers to graze freely without restriction.” The destruction of crops at the start of the farming season, the association warned, poses a serious threat to food security and could force residents to resort to self-help.
“Failure to enforce the said restrictions may be interpreted as an implied directive or a sign of weakness on the part of security agencies, suggesting that the situation is beyond their capabilities,” the BYM said. “Such a development may force native inhabitants and other Nigerians to resort to self-help in defending themselves and protecting their farmlands, which are currently under serious threat.”
The Mazat attack is not an isolated incident. On the same Friday evening, bandits also killed three mobile police officers in Tenibo community, Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State. In a separate attack on Thursday, 30 April, suspected Fulani militias laid siege to Sabon Gari (Yilpo) community in Mangu Local Government Area, killing one young miner, injuring two others, and abducting a fourth.
The pattern is unmistakable. Criminal gangs are systematically targeting mining sites across the North-Central region, exploiting the absence of formal security and the vulnerability of artisanal miners who have no protection. In January 2026, suspected bandits attacked an illegal mining site in the Capitex area of Kuru community, Jos South Local Government Area, killing seven young miners. In March 2026, bandits abducted five foreign nationals from a gold mining site in Zamfara State. The violence has become so pervasive that the Plateau State Police Command imposed a statewide ban on night grazing and mining activities in April. But the ban has done little to stop the bloodshed.
The reaction of the Plateau State Government has been muted. Governor Caleb Mutfwang, who has previously condemned attacks on mining communities and reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to safeguarding lives and property, had not issued a statement on the Mazat killings as of Saturday evening. The Police Public Relations Officer for the Plateau State Command, Alfred Alabo, was unavailable for comment, with multiple news outlets reporting that his phone lines were not going through.
For the families of the four victims, the silence from official quarters is deafening. The pregnant woman who was killed was not just a statistic; she was a mother carrying a child that will never be born. The three other miners were fathers and sons, breadwinners who went out to find tin and ended up finding bullets.
The BYM, in its statement, appealed for calm and urged residents, particularly youths, to desist from night mining activities despite the prevailing socio-economic hardships. But that appeal rings hollow when the government cannot guarantee safety even during daylight hours.
As the sun set over Mazat on Saturday, the community was left to bury its dead and tend to its wounded. The gunmen had come, killed, and gone. No arrests had been made. No security reinforcements had arrived. And no one could say when – or if – the next attack would come.
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