Displaying items by tag: massacres

‘The incessant killing is more dangerous than coronavirus’, said a community leader in central Nigeria recently. His reaction is one of several testimonies - frequently harrowing to read, let alone to have experienced - which feature in an Inquiry into the scale of death and destruction caused by conflict occurring along the Christian-Muslim fault line running across the ‘Middle Belt’ of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. The inquiry, published on 15 June by the UK parliament, had been taking evidence since autumn 2018. Since the coronavirus pandemic, violence appears to have grown even as international media have been otherwise occupied. The report, Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide, said, ‘Violence has claimed the lives of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, causing untold human and economic devastation and heightening existing ethno-religious tensions.’

Christian leaders in the central Plateau State argue that there is a religious dimension to Fulani attacks on villages; unless politicians acknowledge this, they cannot properly address the conflict. On 28 August in Jos, a Christian peace summit for the northern regions was ending. 100 miles away, at the same time, Fulani militants set ablaze Rev Adamu Wurim Gyang and his three children. They were burnt beyond recognition. His wife Jummai was left to die in a pool of blood. 95 houses were torched, 225 crops awaiting harvest were destroyed, at least 14 were killed, and many wounded. CSW said that after the perpetrators had gone the military arrived, killing a woman who tried to stop them detaining local youths who wanted them to go after the Fulani militia instead. A video verified by World Watch Monitor shows people holding up her body, and Rev Ezekiel Dachomo appealing for assistance from the US, UK, and the UN, saying, ‘An Islamic agenda is taking over the nation’.