23 dead as Muslim attacks on Christians continue in Nigeria

Fulani militia associated with an international Islamic terror network killed 23 Christians on Saturday night in Nigeria, according to the Red Cross.

France 24 reports the killings over the weekend came in four separate villages. The attacks follow a similar assault in the Benue-Plateau region of Nigeria last week, where a Fulani terror group killed 10 Christians.

The Lion reported last month that at least 40 Christians were killed by Fulani Muslims in a Palm Sunday attack, bringing the total Christians killed during the Easter season to 113.

“I wonder and imagine why humans will be unkind to their fellow humans to this extent,” said local resident David Okpe in a text message to Christian Daily International. “Security agencies need do more to curtail this level of incessant attacks on Christian communities.”

Agbo Kennedy, a member of the Benue State House of Assembly, said that children as young as 5 were killed in the attack, reported Christian Daily.

“Corpses of the victims had bullet wounds and machete cuts. The old, both women and men, were slaughtered in their homes as most had returned from their farms that evening around 6 p.m.,” added Kennedy.

One local media outlet said the predominantly Christian Tiv tribe was attacked with firearms and machetes, with at least eight people either shot or hacked to death.

The Rev. Danjuma Byang, a Christian leader in Plateau State, said the goal of the Fulani group is to wipe out Christians in the region and establish an Islamic caliphate.

“There is a grand design to destabilize Plateau State, and those carrying out these attacks have another goal – to ensure that the more than 200 Christian communities are wiped out,” Byang said, according to the Christian Post. “Already, more than 60 of these Christian communities are occupied by Fulani herdsmen.”

Others have pointed out that non-Christians are consistently unharmed in such attacks.

“However, one is puzzled as to why indigenous people are always attacked, maimed… yet there has never been a single case of attack on the Chinese miners who are operating in these areas,” said one local resident interviewed by France 24. 

One Christian advocacy group said Islamists control even larger swaths of the area than has been reported. 

The group said terrorists controlled by Fulani already have seized 80 villages or communes in the Benue-Plateau region.  

“These attacks appear to be well coordinated and have the trappings of terrorism by insurgents who are bent on fostering a regime of violence, religious intolerance and total anarchy. This is unacceptable,” said Secretary General Rev. Kallamu Musa of the Christian Rights Agenda in a statement, according to local Vanguard News.    

Buruku Local Government Chairman Zege Aondoakura said despite calls to national law enforcement agencies, nothing is being done to stop the Fulani attacks on Christians, reports the local New National Star News. 

A government spokesperson told Christian Daily that more police would be dispatched to the region.  

However, Christian organizations International Christian Concern and Barnabas Aid have questioned whether anyone will be prosecuted for the murders of Christians.   

Generally, western media downplays the religious character of the attacks and instead frames the fights as part of a disagreement between Fulani herdsman and Christian farmers over land.  

But locals have a quite different take on the violence.  

“The peaceful indigenous tribes of Plateau State have been subjected to sustained acts of genocide by terrorist groups connected to global [Islamic] terrorist networks,” said Ambassador Nanpon Sheni, the President of Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement of the Natives. “They perpetrate heinous acts such as rape of women and girls, assaults on houses of worship and kidnapping.” 

Photo: AP/Samson Omale, used with license.