Gunmen killed at least 40 people in the village of Binnari, in Nigeria’s Taraba State, on Friday, according to Amnesty International. Police had confirmed 10 deaths earlier, before more bodies were found and families began searching for the missing.
Binnari is in the Karim Lamido local government area in the northeast of Africa’s most populous country, home to more Black people than any other nation. Nigerians and their descendants in the United States and Canada are among the readers who will be looking for news from home, and for who answers for it.
Armed men the press describes as “bandits” entered the village under heavy gunfire, Arab News reported, looting food from shops and burning homes, foodstuffs and motorcycles. Premium Times, citing Amnesty, reported that the attackers came in through a border area with neighboring Plateau State.
“The community is now littered with dead bodies, some burnt beyond recognition,” Amnesty International Nigeria said in its statement. It added that “the attack which took place on Friday 23 October 2026 shows utter disdain for the sanctity of life.”
Victor Mshelizah, the Taraba police spokesperson, said that “police operatives were deployed to restore order in the area.” Amnesty answered that “issuing bland statements condemning these horrific attacks is not enough.”
The rights group put the failure at the feet of the state. “The Nigerian authorities continue to leave rural communities in some parts of the north at the mercy of gunmen that repeatedly commit atrocities with impunity,” it said, adding that the “consistent failure of the authorities to bring the suspected perpetrators to justice is clearly emboldening impunity.”
Amnesty called for an impartial investigation, prosecutions, reparations for survivors and concrete security measures for vulnerable communities. No arrests had been reported in the coverage reviewed.
Taraba is usually mapped with Nigeria’s northeast insurgency zone, but its violence has mostly been banditry, farmer-herder conflict and communal clashes, which it shares with Plateau State next door. The toll in this attack is disputed: the figure of 40 is Amnesty’s, and the count was still rising when the group spoke. Police have not published a new number in the reports reviewed.
The names of the dead have not yet been released.
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