Palpable tension has enveloped Ughoton Community in Okpe Local Government Area of Delta State as vigilante operatives in the area have allegedly killed a yet-to-be-identified Ijaw youth.

Sources said that the gory incident occurred in Ughoton on Saturday when the Ijaw youth was reportedly shot dead by men of the community vigilante.

It was gathered that the suspected Ijaw youth was killed when he refused to ‘settle’ the vigilantes at Ughoton Community when he was found carrying some crude oil products suspected to have been siphoned illegally from a pipeline through Ughoton, en route to the upland for delivery.

The Ughoton vigilante chairman reportedly mobilised to go the neighbouring Ijaw community and killed the man, whose wife was said to have just given birth to a baby, one of the sources claimed.

It was further gathered that some angry youths in the said Ijaw community, who were infuriated by the murder of one of their own, embalmed the corpse of the deceased, and took it to the home of the father of the chairman of Ughoton Community vigilante.

Consequently, some residents of Ughoton were said to have resorted to fleeing the community following speculations that aggrieved youths from the Ijaw settlement, “were gearing up for war.”

The Police Public Relations Officer for Delta State Command, DSP Bright Edafe, could not be reached for comments on the incident as of the time of filing this report. (The PUNCH: Text, Excluding Headline)