(Bloomberg) -- Suspected herders killed two priests and 14 parishioners in an attack on a Catholic church in a Nigerian region that's seen a surge in violence between farmers and cattle owners.
Police are investigating the incident in the Mbalom area of Benue state, government spokesman Terver Akase said by phone Tuesday.
The attack “is clearly calculated to stoke up religious conflict and plunge our communities into endless bloodletting,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in an emailed statement.
The main theater of conflict between farmers and herders is the so-called Middle Belt region, whose support was key in helping Buhari's All Progressives Congress win the 2015 general elections. Buhari will seek re-election in a February 2019 vote.
To contact the reporter on this story: Yinka Ibukun in Lagos at yibukun@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Vernon Wessels
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