Gunmen kill 14 people returning from market in central Nigeria

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.

"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. (Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja; Writing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Editing by Helen Popper)

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