Suspected herdsmen have reportedly beheaded a commercial motorcycle rider identified as Udoka Ossai and six indigenes of Ossissa community, in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State.
It was gathered that the incident occurred at about 6:30pm on Thursday when the Okada rider went to drop a passenger at Ossissa Junction along the Ughelli/Asaba Expressway, while the farmers who worked with Ugo Farm were ambushed on their way home.
The late motorcyclist, who was said to be in his late 20s, was returning after dropping the passenger at the roadside when the herdsmen who had been having a running battle with local community farmers launched attack on him.
It was gathered that the herdsmen after beheading the motorcyclist fled the area before community youths arrived the scene.
While some of the aggrieved youths went in search of the killers, others took the lifeless body of Ossai on a protest to the Ashaka Divisional Police Station.
However, the youths, on Friday barricaded the Ughelli/Asaba Highway in protest, lamenting that security agencies had refused to intervene in the killings by these marauding Fulani herdsmen who had forcefully sacked local farmers from their farmland.
The State Commissioner of Police, CP Zanna Ibrahim, who confirmed the killings of three persons, said he had deployed more officers in the area and normalcy had returned.
He stated that his men were already on the hunt for the killers and assured the community that the killers would not go unpunished.
