Terror attacks in central Nigeria’s Plateau State have claimed dozens of Christian lives since mid-April. The new wave of violence comes after a human rights group reported more than 1,300 people killed in the state between December 2023 and February 2024.
The charred remains of a house in Barkin Ladi, Plateau State. ECCVN
Christian villages in Plateau State have come under repeated attack since Christmas when suspected Fulani militants carried out a two-day killing spree that claimed over 200 lives. After a lull in March and early April, violence flared up again in the second half of April. Dozens of villagers have been killed. Tens of thousands are displaced.
In the latest incident, armed men reportedly killed more than 40 residents of Zurak village. On the evening of May 20 a group of armed men on motorcycles invaded the community, firing indiscriminately and burning down houses. Locals said they had recovered 46 bodies. The Plateau State government was only able to confirm nine dead.
Two weeks previously attackers entered the village of Kayarda. Fulani herdsmen killed four Christian farmers, a council official told Morning Star News. On the same day, May 7, herdsmen ambushed and killed a Christian in Kwal village as he was working on his farm, it reported.
Several days earlier, on May 1, Fulani militants attacked another village, Ngoksar, killing two and injuring six.
And on April 18-19, attacks on five communities left 18 people dead, including a Plateau State University student. A local government official said a militia group had stormed the university campus, “shooting sporadically into the air to announce their arrival.”
The governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang, expressed sadness that the unprovoked attacks have continued. He said this was in spite of his government’s efforts to curtail them. Mutfwang appealed to Christians to remain steadfast, saying his government would continue working with security agencies to bring about security.
“I extended my heartfelt condolences to all those affected by the incidents, and pray for the recovery of the injured who are currently being treated in various hospitals,” Mutfwang said.
Governor Mutfwang has previously referred to the sustained attacks on Christians in his state as “a genocide”.
On May 9, Amnesty International Nigeria announced a tally of 1,336 killed in sectarian violence in Plateau between December 2023 and February 2024.
The human rights group said its research team had visited some of the affected areas, weeks after the deadly Christmas Eve attacks. It reported that the violence had driven 29,554 people from their homes between December and February. According to IOM, there were already nearly 55,000 displaced people in Plateau State in December 2023.
The attacks in Plateau State are part of a long-running campaign by jihadist militias from the Fulani ethnic group to force indigenous Christian people groups out of their homeland in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. In recent years, these militias have killed more Nigerians than Boko Haram or the Islamic State.
CSI’s partner organization in Plateau State, the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria, recently published a list of over 150 Christian villages that Fulani militants have annexed since 2001, expelling their residents. Militants seized 22 of these villages in 2023 alone.
In January of this year CSI issued an appeal for Western states to act to end to the killings.
“We urge the U.S. and its allies to address these killings in their dealings with the Nigerian government, rather than continuing to turn a blind eye to the slow genocide unfolding in Africa’s most populous nation,” said CSI’s International President Dr. John Eibner.
