Faith Under Fire
From The Times UK
March 8, 2010
Update: 500 Christian Villagers butchered in Nigeria killing fields
(Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)
Officials estimate that 500 Christians were massacred in night-time
raids by rampaging Muslim gangs near the city of Jos
Jonathan Clayton, Africa Correspondent and Ruth Gledhill
Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in
northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim
rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered
children tangled in a grotesque mess.
One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an
older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had
severed hands and feet.
Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids
by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s
Christian-Muslim fault line.
Local journalists and civil rights organisations who toured the area
yesterday told The Times they had counted at least 200 victims shot and
hacked to death in apparent revenge for sectarian violence in January
that claimed about 300 lives from the two communities. Mark Lipdo, a
co-ordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian aid group,
confirmed at least 93 dead in one village. “But there are corpses
charred beyond recognition,” he said.
Survivors claimed that Muslim inhabitants of the targeted villages of
Zot, Dogo Nahawa and Rastat had received telephone calls two days
before the attack telling them to leave the area.
Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while
others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire.
Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered
after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.
Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three
villages engulfed by the violence. “I could see kids from age zero to
teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their
heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing
and crying,” he said.
Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, ordered
troops into the riot-affected area “to confront and defeat these roving
bands of killers”, he said in a statement. Last night he sacked Sarki
Mukhtar, the national security adviser, a powerful figure in the inner
circle of the ailing President, Umaru Yar’Adua.
Villagers said army assistance came too late. Christian youths accused
the military of complicity in the killings.
Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the
chants of Allahu Akbar — God is Greatest. They said villagers awoke to
shouting and gunfire at about 3am on Sunday.
“They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children. Many
were decapitated,” said Theresa Malinowska, press officer for Christian
Solidarity Worldwide. Staff counted the bodies of four babies and 28
children under 5 in one location alone.
Jos is the regional capital of Plateau State, where Christians from
Nigeria’s south and Muslims from the north compete over the fertile
farmland. The area has often been a flashpoint. In rioting in September
2001 1,000 people died and Muslim-Christian battles killed up to 700
people in 2004.
Jos has been under a dusk-until-dawn curfew since January’s violence.
Archbishop Kwashi said he believed a significant organisation was
behind the killings because they happened during curfew, with the army
in the area.
“I think it is all Christians killed. The Muslims, I heard, had left
the village. The kind of co-operation that came into play — that could
violate a curfew, that could take the law into their own hand. I worry
which village, which town, will be next,” he said.