In central Nigeria, Plateau State in mourning after weekend killings. “ Black Christmas » (“ a black Christmas “), we can read in the newspapers. Armed groups, as we recall, attacked around twenty villages from Saturday evening December 23 to Monday December 25, leaving more than 160 dead and at least three hundred injured. Residents are still missing in three constituencies south of Jos, the Plateau State capital, Mangu, Bokkos and Barkin Laddi constituencies.
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In Plateau State, scenes of collective burials take place in the bereaved communities, with bodies lowered into large pits and placed delicately next to each other. Elsewhere, survivors pile mattresses and suitcases on the roofs of cars to leave the area.
Governor Caleb Mutfwang is multiplying interviews and denouncing a series of attacks “ well coordinated with heavy weapons “. A member of the opposition PDP party, Caleb Mutfwang calls on Nigeria’s security agencies to “ do their job » to identify the sponsors and those who finance and arm the attackers.
Residents said the attackers were Hausa and Fulani militiamen. But for Governor Caleb Mutfwang, it is no longer just a conflict between herders and farmers, or between Muslims and Christians, but rather large-scale criminality. “ As long as we have not cut the sponsorship offer (of this violence)we may never see the end of it “, he warned.
At the federal level, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu condemned the attacks on Tuesday, December 26, declaring that he had ordered security forces to intervene immediately, search the area and apprehend those responsible for these “ atrocities “.
This is a new episode in the cycle of violence in the Nigerian Middle Belt, a cycle that President Bola Tinubu called for to be broken last July, as his predecessor, Muhamadu Buhari, had done before him… without success.
Those who fled more shelters » and live « in the cold »
In addition to this heavy human toll, the attackers burned numerous properties including houses. Ousmane Mohamad, a resident of Bokkos, was one of those who gathered to flee after the attack. But he lost everything, as he testified to the Fulfulde editorial staff in Dakar of RFI.
We were sitting there and we saw them coming from the other side of town. We fled, but they were able to catch three people and they killed them all. We managed to escape, and we managed to save ourselves. We went to other villages and stayed there. We suffered a lot… So far we have not received any help. Currently, we do not have anything to eat, nor clothes, let alone houses… All our possessions have been burned, our clothes, our houses… everything has been burned, even though it is cold… We are living in the cold right now. moment because we no longer have shelter.
A survivor of the Plateau massacre testifies and deplores living now “in the cold” after having “lost everything”