Gunmen kill 14 people returning from market in central Nigeria

By Ahmed Kingimi

Armed attackers ambushed a vehicle returning from a weekly market in the Bokkos area of central Nigeria, killing 14 passengers including women and infants, a local community leader said on Friday.

The attack occurred at about noon on Thursday as the vehicle was carrying people back from the popular Bokkos market in violence-plagued Plateau state.

Farmasum Fuddang, chair of the Bokkos cultural development forum, said the attackers had intercepted the vehicle and then opened fire.

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"Victims included women and little babies," Fuddang said in a statement.

The latest killings follow calls for a stronger security presence in rural Plateau, one of Nigeria's several ethnically and religiously diverse central states where inter-communal conflicts have killed hundreds of people in recent years.

Plateau police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.