Cross River community expels 2,000 Ebonyians and ransacks their shops over missing kinsmen

ABOUT 2,000 Ebonyians have been driven out of neighbouring Cross River State after a community spat blew up into a full blown dispute that saw armed youths attack shops and partake in an act of ethnic cleansing.

 

In bitter clash, the people of Ekajiok in Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State, sent the Ebonyians including infants, children and the elderly packing after two of their indigenes went missing in Ebonyi State. Apparently, some traders from Cross River State had gone to Ebonyi State to mill their rice but two of them did not return, sparking the crisis.

 

Agena Simon, the chairman of the Izzi Traders Association in Ekajiok, said that the displaced people are now camping outside Government House in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital. Mr Simon, who said his people had lived in peace the area prior to this incident, condemned the destruction of houses and shops owned by Ebonyians in the area by the angry youths of Ekajiok.

 

He then called on Ebonyi State Government to come to their rescue stressing that the displaced persons included men, women, pregnant women, nursing mothers, children and infants. It appears that all the properties belonging to Ebonyi traders in Ekajiok was looted as their shops were ransacked.

 

Mr Simon said: “I was in front of my shop on Friday when somebody came to me and told me what was happening. He asked me to close my shops and within five minutes, youths from Ekajiok in their numbers armed with various weapons came and broke my shops.

 

"They looted everything in the shops. They went around the community and did the same thing to all Ebonyi indigenes resident in the community."

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