Sixteen killed in tribal clashes in Northern Nigeria

Sixteen people have been killed in tribal clashes in the East Nigerian state of Taraba near the border with Cameroon. All the victims belong to the Tiv ethnic group of farmers native to the area, attacked by nomad sheep-breeding Fulani from the mainly Muslim north of the country.
  Politicians, traditional and religious leaders immediately requested government intervention to put an end to the escalation of violence between these two communities. According to a very recent report published by the Nigerian social-cultural association 'Miyetti Allah Katual Hore', in Nigeria over one thousand farmers have died in the past ten months in clashes with breeders. The age-old conflict between peasant farmers and breeders originates in the search for and control over grazing land vital for breeding. These violent clashes are almost aways the result of 'economic' conflicts and mistakenly perceived as religious clashes. The reports explains that in Nigeria sheep farming is monopolized by the Fulani, the fourth largest ethnic group in the country and also present in other Sahel nations. The Fulani, usually divided into nomad tribes, generally live in the north where there is a Muslim majority. Farmers, especially in the central and northern regions where the most serious clashes have taken place, almost aways belong to Christian-Animist ethnic minorities such as the Berom and the Tarok in the state of Plateau, or the Tiv (in Benue and Taraba). . .