Nigeria’s central Middle Belt region is home to a diverse cultural population of semi-nomadic cattle herders and farming communities. For decades, the region has experienced increasingly violent attacks that have been partially attributed to direct competition over access and use of natural resources. According to a report released by the International Crisis Group in July, the violence between Nigerian farmers and herders killed at least 1,300 people in the first half of 2018, claiming “about six times more civilian lives than the Boko Haram insurgency”. The report, titled Stopping Nigeria’s spiralling farmer-herder violence, stated that the decades-long conflict has been aggravated, by among other factors, by “climate-induced degradation of pasture”.
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