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Tension is rising in Umeh, a riverine community in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, following allegations of attacks by herdsmen on residents and travellers.

A community leader and lawyer, Akpovienehe Duncan Afahakor, raised the alarm yesterday in a post on the Facebook platform, Umeh Need Road, warning that the situation was fast deteriorating.

In the post titled, “Umeh under attack,” Afahakor alleged that herdsmen had taken over farmlands and were attacking road users.

“No one truly understands the intentions of the group. They have occupied the Umeh bushes, preventing our people from accessing their farms. Beyond this, they emerge from the bush to attack motorcycle riders along the Umeh bridge. Just two days ago, without any provocation, one of our youths was shot in the leg multiple times,” he wrote.

According to him, the development has crippled farming in the agrarian community.

“As a result, we can no longer go to our farms to tend to our pepper, cassava, and plantain crops. The attacks have now extended to the road, and if urgent help does not arrive, there is real fear that the violence could spread into the community itself,” the post added.

Umeh, which gained access by road during the administration of former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan following sustained advocacy on the platform, is mostly dependent on farming and riverine trade.

The Isoko South Local Government Chairman ‘s Chief Press Secretary, Michael Akpodhoma said he would communicate its action on the matter by today.

However, the state Police Command said it had not received any report of the alleged attack.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Police Bright Edafe, told The Nation: “We don’t have that report.”

Residents are calling for urgent intervention by the state government and security agencies to prevent further escalation.

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No fewer than 25 underage girls working as sex workers have been rescued from a hotel in Aguleri, Anambra East Local Government Area.

The girls, in a video posted online by an indigene of the area, confessed that they were trafficked into Anambra from Ebonyi State to serve as prostitutes.

In the video, some of the girls also said they were brought into the state by persons they referred to as their madam, from Akwa Ibom, Abia and Niger states.

One of the survivors, who identified herself as Divine, a 14 year old girl, said she was brought in by a woman who met her and her cousin in Abakaliki and offered to get them a job in Anambra State.

“She asked us if we would like to travel to Anambra and work. I agreed and said maybe when I come here, I can send money to my family. She took me, my cousin and her friend here.

“When we came here, she told us the work, but we said we could not do it and wanted to go back. They then said we would have to work to pay for the transport they used to bring us here.

“Since then, we have been trying to escape, but they did not allow us. We once escaped and they caught us. Even when we were on our period, they used to give us cotton wool to clean our private parts so that blood would not stain the men or the bedsheets,” she narrated.

Divine’s mother, who traced her to Aguleri before reporting to authorities in the community, said her daughter had been missing since October 2025. Divine’s cousin and friend who were taken along with her gave their ages as 15 and 19 years respectively in the video.

Other girls who were rescued said they were brought by older women who lured them from different locations with the promise of jobs.

A narrator in the now viral video said the girls were camped at Morning Star Hotel, where men came to sleep with them for fees that accrued to their madam.

As at the time of filing this report, police authorities in Anambra were yet to confirm the report.

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The Nigeria Police Force says a coordinated security operation across Kogi and Kwara states has led to the rescue of 309 hostages, the arrest of 129 suspected terrorists, and the killing of 55 others.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, disclosed this on Tuesday during an interview on Politics Today on Channels Television.

Providing details of the operation, Hundeyin said the suspects who were killed during armed confrontations with security operatives, stressing that the incidents were not cases of extrajudicial killings.

“I can confirm that 129 of these terrorists were arrested and 55 were neutralised. I am talking about Kogi and Kwara. Some people might want to say these were extrajudicial killings, so I have to make it clear — these were firefights,” he said.

Hundeyin also confirmed that “309 hostages were rescued between Kogi and Kwara” during the sustained operations.

According to him, the suspects who were killed refused to surrender and chose to engage operatives despite the arrest of some of their associates.

“These were people who decided to fight to the end, so 55 of them were neutralised,” he added.

He explained that the success recorded was the result of “months of intelligence gathering and planning,” involving multiple security agencies.

The operation, he said, was executed by a combination of police units, including the Police Mobile Force, Intelligence Response Team, Special Intervention Squad, and the Air Wing, working in partnership with the military and other security agencies.

“This was a mix of units working together. There were ground troops mopping up the area in a coordinated manner, with constant communication between the Air Wing and officers on the ground,” Hundeyin said.

According to him, no casualties were recorded among security operatives during the operation.

He noted that the operatives had been deployed to the area for several months, describing the terrain as difficult, heavily forested, and largely inaccessible by road, which necessitated aerial support.

The police spokesman assured Nigerians that the operation was ongoing and would be sustained.

“In the coming days, it may not be as easy because a lot of ‘raking’ still needs to be done, but we can assure Nigerians that we are working seriously to sustain what we have started. We are taking this battle to every identified enclave of bandits and terrorists. This is just the beginning,” he said.

The large-scale, multi-agency offensive reportedly began over the weekend, with aerial footage from the operation showing settlements in forested areas engulfed in flames as security forces dismantled criminal hideouts.