State authorities in Nigeria said Monday that no arrests have been made following the grisly killings of 19 soldiers nearly three weeks ago.
"Nobody has been arrested so far but we are trying to get them apprehended," Benue State government spokeswoman Becky Orpin told AFP.
The Nigerian government at the weekend ordered authorities in the central state to find the killers and bring them to book.
The 19 soldiers were killed by suspected militiamen while on a peacekeeping mission at the border of Benue and Taraba states where two ethnic communities were feuding.
The soldiers' bodies were found mutilated.
The killings triggered bloody reprisals last week by the military.
Troops raided the villages of Zaki-Biam, Gbeji, Anyii, Iorja, Vaase, Tse-Adoor and Sankera, opening fire on residents, torching homes and markets, and flattening buildings with shells. Two hundred civilians died in the violence.
In his first public announcement since the rampage, President Olusegun Obasanjo said late Sunday that soldiers acted in self-defence.
He accused people in the community of firing first on the soldiers.
"For young men to take guns, they are not properly trained to carry guns and shoot at soldiers, you don't think that is dangerous?" he asked during the monthly television programme, "Media Chat".
"Whatever else soldiers are taught to be or not to be, they are taught to fight for self-defence," he added.
Information Minister Jerry Gana said that the troops deployed along the borders of the two states had been ordered by Obasanjo to use "minimum force" -- LAGOS, (AFP)
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