20th August, 2014
The 14 people killed in an attack by Muslim Fulani herdsmen last week in Plateau state were Christians killed for their faith, not cattlemen slain for their livestock, area Christians said.
In Yelwa, where Muslim Fulani cattlemen have largely replaced Christian ethnicities over the years by means of slash-and-shoot attacks, a throng of heavily armed herdsmen attacked the remnant Christian community in the early hours of 11th August, the sources said.
“These Muslim Fulani gunmen were more than 150, and they were armed,” a 40-year-old Christian from the village who fled to Jos told Morning Star News. “They attacked us in Yelwa. Many of the members of our community were killed by them. And they also burned down our houses. Those of us who survived had to run out of the village, some to Shendam town and others to places like Garkawa, Langtang, Pankshin or Jos.”
Yelwa is part of the Shendam Local Government Area in the southern part of Plateau state. On the same morning in Zarazong, in the Jos East Local Government Area, a group of gunmen killed two other Christians, and between the two villages 15 homes were burned down, sources said.
“The gunmen came into the village and began shooting indiscriminately ” I saw two dead bodies as I tried escaping from our village,” said a 23-year-old woman of Zarazong whose name, like that of the previous source, is withheld for security reasons. “I cannot for now say who the victims are, as it was difficult for me to know who they are as I was running away. But, I know they are from our village. We are all Christians in our village and are members of COCIN (Church of Christ in Nations).”
Stories of cattle-rustling as a motive for the attacks seeped into the Nigerian press as a means of dousing potential religious conflict, but any stolen cattle was incidental to the attacks, sources said.
Rev Sonja Bewarang, chairman of the Plateau chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, confirmed the killings and house burnings.
“Information we have so far received from our pastors in the two attacked villages shows that two of our church members were killed in Zarazong and 12 in Yelwa,” Bewarang said. “We are yet to get the complete details about attacks because of the state of insecurity in the two areas, but I can confirm that all the victims of the attack are members of the Church of Christ in Nations.”
Bewarang said the church was saddened by unprovoked attacks on Christians in Plateau state.
“It is true that there were attacks on some of our villages on Monday, and we are saddened that these have continued without the Nigerian government doing anything to stem them,” Bewarang said.
A week before the attacks on the two villages, the Plateau state government disclosed that 13 years of unabated assaults on Christians have left thousands of widows and orphans. While receiving a conflict management delegation from the Netherlands, Olivia Dazyem, state commissioner for information, lamented that the state has been unable to access humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to alleviate the suffering of Christians.
“It is sad that the UN has not deemed it necessary to assist in ameliorating the plight of our orphans and widows caused by violent, religiously induced attacks on our people,” Dazyem said.
Emmanuel Abu, deputy superintendent of police at the Plateau State Police Command, said police had yet to obtain details of casualties in the two villages.
“The commissioner of police, Nasiru Oki, has deployed enough policemen to the villages under attack to control the security situation in both locations,” Abu told Morning Star News. “No arrest has been made yet, and we are doing everything possible to bring the culprits to book.”
