Residents of Benue state are devastated once again, following the recent massacre of over 100 people in a predominantly Christian village on 13 June. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu spoke out against the attackers, calling for the arrest of the criminals.
Sources report that suspected Fulani terrorists attempted an attack on an internally displaced persons (IDP) mission shelter at approximately 10pm on 13 June. Military personnel repelled the attack, and the terrorists subsequently attacked the Yelwata Main Market, setting buildings on fire and mutilating and burning the bodies of victims, some of whom were trapped in their homes.
The assailants chanted the jihadist slogan, “Allahu Akbar (god is greater)” in the attack, which followed several days of terrorist violence in Guma County, where Yelwata is located.
On 8 June, two farmers were killed and a third was seriously wounded when they were fired upon whilst working in their fields in Udei in the Nyiev Council Ward. On 11 June, two people were killed in a machete attack in Tse Ivokor, Unongu, and the following day, five people were killed in an ambush on farmlands in Daudu as they were searching for the bodies of those who had been killed in the previous day’s attack. A further four people involved in a search party were killed on 13 June in Daudu, while five others were killed and eight were injured in an attack on the Akondutough community in North Bank in the neighbouring Makurdi County.
With President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in attendance at a meeting in the state capital of Makurdi, the paramount ruler of the Tiv tribe, James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse, stated that attacks such as the 13-14 June massacre in Yelwata village were not the result of sectarian conflict.
“It’s not herders-farmers clashes, not communal clashes or reprisal attacks,” Ayatse said. “It is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits.”
President Tunybu questioned why arrests had not yet been made and called on the Chief of Defence to investigate and prosecute the criminals involved.
This call to action provided little consolation to the survivors of the Yelwata attack, where mostly women and children were slain.
Submit a Prayer