YAOUNDÈ, Cameroon (Crux) – Attacks across Nigeria’s Central Plateau State on Christmas Eve left at least 160 people dead and about 300 others injured.
The attackers started on 24 December but continued into Christmas Day. They targeted 20 Christian villages across the Bokkos and Barkin Ladi areas of Plateau State.
“We were taken unawares and those that could run, ran into the bush. A good number of those that couldn’t were caught and killed with machetes,” local resident Magit Macham told Reuters.
A statement on 26 December by the Plateau State Commissioner of Police, Okoro Alawari, indicates that 96 people were killed in two of the 20 local government areas (LGAs) — Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi — and 221 houses were burned.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) condemned the Christmas Eve attacks, with its president, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, releasing a statement:
“We condemn these acts of violence in the strongest possible terms. The burning down of houses, and worship centres, and the destruction of properties worth millions of naira is not only a criminal act but also a direct assault on our shared values of peace, unity, and mutual respect.”
He added: “Such acts have no place in our society, and must not be allowed to prevail.”
A Catholic-affiliated NGO called Intersociety said the massacre “was likely a clandestine government-coordinated revenge killing using the government-protected Fulani Jihadists to launch a reprisal attack over the Dec. 3 killing of over 120 defenceless Islamic festival celebrants in Tudun Biri part of Kaduna State”.
The Muslims were killed by two airstrikes coordinated by the Nigerian Defence Headquarters of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The military said it was accidental, but Intersociety‘s Board Chair Emeka Umeagbalasi toldCrux he didn’t see it that way.
“We are not surprised at what happened in Plateau State yesterday (24 December),” Emeka said. “We have blood suckers all over the place, and as I have said it before, the Nigerian security forces are biased, crudely biased. They are pro-Islamist security forces.
“If Nigerian security forces were up and running, some of this nonsense would have been stopped. But our security forces are crudely biased and partisan.”
He pointed out that highly militarized states such as Kaduna, Plateau and Benue have become “dangerously unsafe for Christians and non-Muslim[s], to the extent that Fulani Jihadists recklessly and rapaciously invade Christian communities and other non-Muslim settlements at will and slaughter them at will and unchallenged.
“Even when the deployed security forces receive early warning signals from the victims, the Fulani Jihadists still have their way and slaughter as many defenseless Christian citizens and burn down their properties as they wish and without resistance from any security quarters.”
Emeka also accused the government of complicity in the killing of Christians in Nigeria, describing the ruling party at the Federal level as “the political wing of Fulani butchers”.
“The Nigeria government has continued to treat Christians as third-class citizens and the Muslims are first class citizens,” Emeka told Crux.
He noted that from January to July this year, about 2,500 killings of Christians were counted, and he predicted that by the end of the year, at least 4,000 Christians would have been killed in Africa’s most populous nation, a figure, he adds, that reflects recent trends: in both 2021 and 2022 around 5,000 Christians were killed.
“There are a lot of butcheries going on in the country, a lot of disappearances, a lot of abductions,” Emeka says. “Security forces are abducting Christians. Fulani jihadists are killing Christians.”
Photo: The aftermath of an attack by gunmen at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, southwest Nigeria, 5 June 2022. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images.)
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.