Hundreds of Christians were murdered in an overnight massacre by ethnic Fulani Muslims on March 7 in Nigeria’s Plateau state.
Rampaging Fulani herdsmen used machetes to kill the mostly ethnic Berom victims, including many women and children, in three farming villages near the city of Jos. About 75 houses also were burned.
State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong confirmed that about 500 people were killed in the attacks, which took place mainly in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat villages.
“We were woken up by gunshots in the middle of the night, and before we knew what was happening, our houses were torched and they started hacking down people,” survivor Musa Gyang told media representatives.
The assailants apparently came on foot from a neighboring state; security forces reportedly had been alerted of a possible attack on the villages but did not act beforehand.
Some 380 Christians were buried in one mass burial space, a local government official who asked to remain anonymous told International Christian Concern. The official said police have arrested 93 people and recovered guns, knives and other weapons from the suspects.
The attack is the latest in several religious clashes in the state in recent months that have claimed lives and property. Plateau state lies in Nigeria’s “middle belt” and has dozens of ethnic groups living in near proximity to each other, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Plateau is a predominantly Christian state in a country almost evenly divided between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. The area has been the site of intense clashes over land, and Jos has been under a military curfew since more than 300 people — mostly Muslims — were killed in religious-based violence in January. Officials speculate the March 7 attack was in reprisal for the January violence, the AP reported.
Bishop Andersen Bok, national coordinator of the Plateau State Elders Christian Fellowship, along with group Secretary General Musa Pam, described the attack as yet another “jihad and provocation on Christians.”
Soon after the militants besieged Dogo Nahawa, the Christian leaders said, at 1:30 a.m. they contacted the military, which is in charge of security in the state.
“But we were shocked to find out that the soldiers did not react until about 3:30 a.m., after the Muslim attackers had finished their job and left,” they stated. “We are tired of these genocides on our Christian brothers and state here that we will not let this go unchallenged.”
On March 5, Abel Damina, the national youth president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, expressed concern over cases of clandestine killings of Christians in remote parts of Plateau state by Islamic extremists and called on the federal government to retrieve sophisticated weapons in their possession.
“Even as I speak to you now, I am receiving reports that some clandestine killings are still going on in the remote areas of Plateau state by the fundamentalists,” Damina was quoted as saying. “They pounce on Christians and kill them without anybody knowing much of their identity except that they are Christians.”
He added that recently he visited the governor in Jos regarding the crisis and secured photos of Christian victims.
“Young men, Christians, were going to their farm to harvest their produce and the fundamentalists pounced on them,” Damina said. “They were called infidels.” (BP)
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