Muslim Fulani’s murder 200 or more Christians near Jos, Nigeria: Now threat equal or greater than Boko Haram
Over 200 innocent civilians, mostly Christian communities near Jos, were mass-murdered by radical Muslim Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria in the Plateau state region.
These Muslim Fulani herdsmen now pose as big of a threat to the region as the Islamic State group in Nigeria, Boko Haram.
The 12 Nigerian states with Sharia law image: Bohr via wikimedia commons
The attacks, occurring around June 23rd and the 24th, involved raids on ten predominantly Christian communities where they assaulted and killed men, women, and children, claiming that the attacks were in retaliation for cattle thefts, according to Morning Star News.
In several villages, church buildings were targeted to be burned down and their pastors victimized during the attack.
Local law enforcement claimed that 86 people were murdered, but according to Morning Star News, whose correspondent visited two morgues in Jos, the bodies of victims numbered over 200.
“In Nghar village alone, about 70 corpses of Christians were recovered and the entire village has been burnt down by the Fulani herdsmen,” area resident Thomas Chuwang, 45, told Morning Star News by phone on Monday (June 25), adding that the victims there were members of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN).
Dogo Nvou of Nghar, Gashish District in the Barkin Ladi area, said Fulanis killed more than 70 people in his village alone.
“My uncle, his wife and many relations [were] killed,” he said in a text message. “Over 70 people in my village have been killed. It is only the Lord that can comfort us all.”
Plateau Gov. Simon Lalong denounced the assaults, saying, “The gory pictures of the killing of innocent citizens, women and children continue to torment our hearts, and it sends the serious message that something drastic needs to be done comprehensively, to nip once and for all the ugly menace of attacks that has come to be associated with suspected militia herdsmen.”
He added, “These re-occurring attacks have regrettably opened up space for all manners of criminality by criminal elements and conflict merchants, who engage daily in cattle rustling, theft, banditry, gun running and other forms of crimes amongst our citizens.”
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attacks, but there have been calls for Buhari to either increase security or resign.
Last year, a report claimed that “…the Fulani have become “more deadly than the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency that has ravaged Nigeria’s northeast and is becoming a key issue in the upcoming 2019 presidential polls.”
“Violating a place of worship, killing priests and worshippers is not only vile, evil, and satanic,” said Buhari at the time of that attack, “it is clearly calculated to stoke up religious conflict and plunge our communities into endless bloodletting.”
