ADUWAN, Nigeria — Christian children fled from gunmen and hid among rock formations towering over the eastern side of Aduwan, but a 6-month-old baby and a 13-year-old girl did not survive.
The infant, Alexander Blessed, and the girl, Happiness Adamu, were the youngest of five people from five churches who were slain. Christians were still gathered in and about a home Feb. 23 where a funeral for the village chief had taken place in the predominantly Muslim Nigerian state of Kaduna when gunmen arrived at night and began firing.
Eleven Christians were hospitalized with wounds, including Martha Blessed, who was shot as she tried to protect her infant son. Bullets broke both legs of another 13-year-old Christian girl, Gloria Livinus, of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Aduwan.
The raid came as a shock as area Christians had been living without enmity toward anyone, said John Audi, 45-year-old grandson of the village chief and a member of St. Patrick’s.
Witnesses reportedly said the gunmen spoke in Fulani dialect, but church leaders said the area had been free of the land and property conflicts that have marked relations between Muslim, ethnic Fulanis and predominantly Christian tribes.
The attack came two days after a similar slaughter of 10 people in village near Jos in Plateau state.
Vicar Casmir Yabo, of the First African Church Mission, Aduwan, said the rock formations protecting the village’s eastern flank saved many lives.
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