At least 140 Nigerian Christians were kill during Christmas holidays.
Attacks on 26 villages in Plateau State began on December 23, carried out by suspected extremists among Muslim Fulani herdsmen against Christian farming communities. Some media reports to quote nearly 200 dead, including many missing as local residents fled the armed men to take refuge in the bush.
Grace Godwin was preparing Christmas Eve dinner when her husband bursting with news from the neighboring village, ordering him to go to the fields with the children. Rebecca Maska also took shelter but was shot and bled for three hours until help arrived, while her son’s hand was cut with a machete before fleeing. Magit Macham dragged his injured brother to safety and hid overnight until the attackers left.
“These attacks are recurring,” Macham told Reuters, returning from Jos, the regional capital, to celebrate Christmas. “They want to drive us from our ancestral land. »
For years, violence has raged in the central belt of this West African country, where a predominantly Muslim north meets a predominantly Christian south. Land rights issues are also contested, as semi-nomadic pastoralists press against sedentary agrarian hamlets in Africa’s most populous country.
The Christmas massacres were the worst attacks Since 2018. A local publication account 201 additional deaths in Plateau State in the first half of 2023. In the Middle Belt, at least 2,600 people were killed in 2021, according to to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The Northern Governors Forum called the attacks are “reprehensible and heinous”. It was further sentenced by the national Muslim organization Jama’atu Nasril Islam, which described the attacks as “barbaric”, but in the context of a “cycle of violence”.
However, the president of the livestock breeders’ association Miyetti Allah blame “the whole problem” over an alleged cattle rustling incident in which three Fulani cow herders were killed. But the report was downplayed by the head of a multi-security task force in Plateau State, who linked it to an earlier incident of cows grazing in a potato field.
Driven out by farmers, the parties agreed to negotiate a settlement, he said.
“I know we have had a series of problems with the breeders in the region. » declared Mahanan Matawal, a local official. “(But) even if livestock were stolen from somewhere other than our communities, we should not be blamed for these atrocities. »
Some analyzes have linked tensions to climate changeand Maria Lozano, representative of Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic relief group, declared many factors were behind the ongoing conflict. But the timing of this specific attack had “religious overtones.”
Polycarp Lubo, president of the Plateau section of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), declared that the attackers sent letters to villages warning them that they “would not celebrate Christmas but would flee with their rice.” He said he was surprised that security was unable to act on such an advanced warning.
Gideon Para-Mallam, president of the Para-Mallam Peace Foundation, expressed exasperation at the secular explanations.
“A terrible genocide is taking place in Plateau State, but it is being presented as a clash between farmers and herders,” he said. “Sadly, false and misleading narratives are being created while rivers of blood continue to flow. »
Calling the attack a deliberate land grab aimed at eliminating the Christian population, the former regional director of the Lausanne Movement said 5,000 people were displaced and eight churches burned. Two religious people were killed, including Baptist pastor Solomon Gushe and nine members of his family.
Open doors ranks Nigeria is number 6 on the annual global watch list of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian. In 2022, it account 5,014 Nigerian believers killed because of their faith. And since 2009, Intersociety, a Nigerian non-governmental organization, says that at least 52,000 Christians and 34,000 moderate Muslims have been killed by jihadist forces. Additionally, 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools were burned.
Last year, dozens of people were kill at church on Pentecost Sunday.
Para-Mallam hopes the atrocities in Plateau State will be a “turning point” and said the military response has prevented the death toll from reaching thousands. However, security policy must move from damage control to proactive conflict prevention.
Catholic Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah appealed to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, sworn last May.
“You have what you have prayed for, what you have dreamed of, what you have desired. » declared Kukah. “Now is harvest time… Under your leadership, we must end the horrible instrumentalization of religious, ethnic or regional identities. »
Tinubu immediately order provision of humanitarian aid to the region, and sworn that “these messengers of death, pain and sorrow will not escape justice”.
However, the Amnesty International branch in Nigeria called for an independent investigation, declaring that Tinubu’s promises to tackle insecurity have so far proved empty. Such “blatant failures,” he charged, “are gradually becoming the norm.”
And according to According to some analyses, the security response has further inflamed violence. In actions unrelated to Nigeria’s northwest region, soldiers are accused of burning down the homes and villages of terrorist fighters. But as soon as the army leaves the area, emboldened fighters take revenge on innocent residents.
Sixteen other people were killed over Christmas in the northern state of Sokoto.
The northwestern state of Kaduna, however, witnessed a celebratory event that illustrated both the difficulty of military deterrence and the challenge to religious harmony. Earlier in December, more than 100 Muslims were killed when the army mistakenly targeted their village in a bombing campaign against terrorists.
At Christmas they famous with the Christians of the neighborhood church.
The president of the CAN, Daniel Okoh, deplored much more than the loss of human lives.
“We mourn with the families, friends and communities who have tragically lost their loved ones,” he said. declared. “(This) is not only a criminal act, but also a direct attack on our shared values of peace, unity and mutual respect.”
No group claims responsibility for the attacks.
“It has truly been a bloody Christmas for us,” Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang said. “Until we cut the supply in terms of sponsorship, we may never see the end of this. »
