On the night of Feb 21, at least 500 people were killed in the mainly
Christian area of Agatu in the central Benue state of Nigeria. That’s
according to local sources, although the figure could rise even higher -
due to continuing violence and the fact that locals and relief workers
still cannot get full access to the area due to security concerns.
Eleven days after bands of Muslim Fulani nomads launched systematic
attacks on local communities, they still occupied at least six villages
they’d seized, confirm relief and media workers - the first who managed
to reach the area. Local media report that spokespeople for the
herdsmen’s association told the police chief their action was provoked
by the Agatu people killing "10,000” cows.
Members of this first mission said they saw no dead cattle at all. One
of the team, carrying an amateur video camera, captured disturbing
evidence of the human deaths, however, and sent this report, voiced by
WWM staff.
VIDEO script
‘‘What is going on is jungle justice! It’s survival of the fittest. We
are just a local government. Small place! Sir. I just want to point out
this: as we are going we will see a lot of devastations that have been
done to us. (Akpa Iduh, Agatu Community leader, also Chair of the Peace
and Reconciliation Committee set up by Benue State to, alongside Fulani
community leaders, stop the attacks).
REPORTER: About 20,000 people are thought to have fled the wave of
attacks which some locals say is the worst massacre by mainly Muslim
Fulani herdsmen since 2010 - when 400-500 died near Jos. Victim after
displaced victim told us how the attacks began in Okokolo village in
Agatu local government area, and then continued daily in neighbouring
villages, leaving them nowhere to run.
Dr Sunday Ochoche, our mission leader and Executive Director of the
Victims’ Support Group, set up in July 2014 to support victims of the
Islamist Boko Haram insurgency in NE. Nigeria, was shocked by the scale
of devastation.
“I’ve been to a number of crisis spots in this country. What I’ve seen
is comparable to the damage caused by Boko Haram in NE Nigeria”. (Dr
Sunday Ochoche)
REPORTER: What we saw was unnerving - the tales of victims could not
capture the extent of the devastation. Traveling mile after mile on
bumpy dirt roads, we saw no sign of human beings, in village after
burnt-down village.
Local officials explained that fear of repeat attacks kept them from
coming back to bury the bodies still littered in the villages. Survivors
said the attackers had AK47s and ammunition belts. They reported that
two prior official trips by army and police had ended with nothing
except the firing of warning shots.
REPORTER: The narrative of the herder/farmer conflict is common. But
there are undercurrents of an apparently bitter religious battle for
domination. Fulani herdsmen are mainly Muslim and the Agatu farmers are
mostly Christian.
After our mission, the Nigerian government suspended non-military
visits to the region. Soldiers were deployed there just in time to
forestall another attack, on March 5, when herdsmen set fire to yet
another village.
It was easy for us to see why people like Iduh were angry. In a couple
of earlier villages, cattle roamed free - the only living things in
sight, except for a couple of herdsmen who took off as soon as they saw
our convoy’s plumes of dust. As we drove further into the area, swarms,
droves and then herds of hundreds of cows, flanked by herdsmen, came
into plain view. They were still at the scene of the crime – it seemed
to be a continuing, active situation as we left.
Original story, published 4 March:
Several days of attacks in February’s final days killed hundreds of
people and sent thousands fleeting from largely Christian areas of
Nigeria’s farming belt.
The armed attacks in and around Agatu, in the central Nigerian state of
Benue, had features long familiar to Nigerians: ethnic Fulani cattle
herders, largely Muslim, moving in on farmers, largely Christian. The
long-running land conflict frequently is framed in economic terms, but
it also has distinctive religious contours. Survivors quoted by
Christian-rights advocates said the attackers specifically targeted
Christians and churches and spared Muslims and mosques.
The violence broke out 23 Feb. and continued across several villages
for several days, culminating 29 Feb. in what witnesses told Nigerian
news media was a massacre in Agatu. The killings sparked protests in
Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. A week after the attacks began, President
Muhammadu Buhari ordered an investigation.
A complete assessment of the number of dead and displaced is not
available. Early social-media postings by Signal, a news startup in
Abuja, reported “scores” dead. An aide to Benue Gov. Samuel Ortom told
Agence France-Presse that “hundreds of lives were lost.”
The Agatu violence appeared to be worse than the 2010 attacks in
Plateau state that killed more than 200 Christians, according to a 2
March email sent to supporters by Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian
human-rights lawyer based in Washington, D.C. who specializes in crimes
against Nigeria’s Christians.
A Nigerian news organization, Vanguard, quoted a survivor, Ada Ojechi,
as saying the fatality rate was very high but could not put a figure to
it because no survivor could take the risk of counting the dead.
Ojechi told Vanguard that the promise of Federal military and Benue
state police created a false sense of security. Many of the people who
fled began to return on Sunday. The next day, the attackers returned.
“Our people were caught napping because we relaxed when we heard what
we considered the cheering news that the federal government has
intervened,” Ojechi was quoted as saying.
“Unfortunately, the Fulanis knew we had relaxed and took advantage of
us to unleash a terrible massacre on us. As we speak, corpses litter
everywhere in the village. I have been trying to reach many of my family
members without success. We feel terribly let down by the government
that announced a joint security team. We have not seen the security men-
be they policemen or military, as I speak.”
Nigerian news reports said more than 7,000 people have been internally
displaced and are living in camps as a result of the violence.
In announcing an investigation, President Buhari said: “The only way to
bring an end to the violence once and for all is to look beyond one
incident and ascertain exactly what factors are behind the conflicts.”
“There should not be any reason why Nigerians of any group or tongue
cannot now reside with one another wherever they find themselves after
decades of living together.”
In his 2 March email dispatch from Nigeria, Ogebe said the area remained in an “active shooter” situation.
In meeting with eight survivors 28 Feb., Ogebe said a Muslim man
claimed to have been spared when he was able to recite a verse from the
Quran for the attackers.
“They claimed they were told that [the Muslim man’s] people did not
support Islamic worship. He denied this and showed them his mosque. It
was spared but village churches were burnt,” Ogebe wrote.
“Yet the US embassy still maintains that this is purely a turf war between farmers and grazers without religious undertones.”
Open Doors, a global charity that provides support to Christians and
churches that are under pressure for their faith, ranks Nigeria as the
most violent country on Earth for Christians. Boko Haram, the Nigerian
Islamist insurgency that has pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed
Islamic State, is responsible for the great majority of anti-Christian
violence. But its attacks “also inspire others, thus creating a ripple
effect leading to further fanatical movements and violent, more
spontaneous mobs,” according to an Open Doors assessment of Nigeria.
“Hausa-Fulani herdsmen and settlers have been conducting massive
operations over the years as a result of which thousands of Christians
have been evicted or killed,” the Open Doors assessment says.
Nigeria ranks No. 12 on the Open Doors World Watch List, which
comprises the 50 countries where life as a Christian is most difficult.
Courtesy: World Watch Monitor
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