NEWS JUNKIE POST
Mar 8, 2010 at 10:39 amNigeria: Barbaric Killing Of 500 Women And Children In Tribal Violence
The attack took place in Jos, in the Plateau area of Nigeria, over 500 people, mostly women and children were murdered in the early hours of Sunday. Once again this troubled area of Nigeria is up in flame. It is the second times in a few months that the town is engulfed in ethnic-religious violence opposing conflicting tribes which are either Christians or Muslims.
Nigeria as a whole has been torned by ethnics and religious violence for decades. April 12, 1994 was the first deadly riot in Jos. The cause of the 1994′s riots is arguably the conflict between several tribes: The Benon, Anaguta and Afizere tribes on one side and the Hausa-Fulani tribe on the other. Each sides are laying claims on Jos as their own territory.
In Sunday’s attack, the attackers were from the Fulani tribe (see 2ND photograph), while the victims belonged to the Beron tribe. Some of the Fulani fighters positioned themselves at the entrance of the village while others went in and proceeded to start setting most houses on fire. Most of those who escaped the fires were butchered with machete while others were shot.
“We were caught unaware. We were alarmed by gunshots at about 2:00 AM, ans as we tried to escape, the Fulanis who were already waiting slaughtered many of us,” said Dalyop Gyang one of the few survivors.
The survivors describe the attack as reprisal. They said it could be in direct retaliation for an attack on the Fulanis in Kuru.
Ima Niboro, Nigeria’s acting President’s spokesperson, called on “all Nigerians to remain peaceful and law abiding”.
“While it is too early to state categorically who is responsible for this renewed wave of violence, we want to inform Nigerians that the security forces are on top of the situation,” said Ima Niboro.
Ima Niboro announced that the acting President has placed all the security forces in the region on “red alert” so as to “stem any cross border dimensions of this latest conflict”. Niboro has also directed the security forces to “undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers”.
Meanwhile and despite the reassuring words of Ima Niboro, the pure madness of killing is still obviously largely going unchecked in this area of Nigeria.
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Men this is bad news.
This is why I believe religion should be a private matter in ones home. Once a human is harmed they should be punished to the fullest extent of the international law. If this happened anywhere else it would have been called a small genocide. Because it happened in Africa no one cares. This is very sad
Another case of Islamic extremists smoting infidels, namely Christians. Funny how that wasn’t mentioned in this article. This article was presented as if it this is all about a couple of tribes who just can’t get along. This event is about the continuing spread of Islamic Jihad.
No it is not. You obviously did not read the article. Two factors are at play. The first one is a TRIBAL issue between members of the Fulani tribe and members of the Beron tribe. The second one, as mentioned in my article, is a RELIGIOUS conflict between Muslims (Fulani) and Beron (Christians). This is precisely why I used the term Ethnic-religious conflict. The Fulanis were acting in retaliation to some attacks by the Beron. You see Jack, it is not as simple as you want to think it is for the sake of your own political/religious agenda. Once again the blame here is shared by Muslims and Christians. Fundamentalism is here the problem, and Jack your discourse is not helping whatsoever.
I agree, Gilbert. Fundamentalism is the problem. But I have been following this conflict for quite some time, and what I see (which you failed to mention) is extremist Islamists are the ones carrying out the heinous crimes of hacking women and children to death.
I did read the entire article and I was left with the impression that you were stating this was simply a matter of several tribes vying for control and territory.
I don’t have a political/religious “agenda,” I just felt that the title of the article, ‘tribal violence,’ is misleading, when in fact this is RELIGIOUS violence carried out by islamists against anyone who isn’t, particularly Christians in this case.
Again Jack both factors are at play here, the oldest one is the tribal one which got complicated more recently by the spread of both monotheist religions (Christianity and Islam) in Africa to replace the homegrown animist religions. So it is a double whammy if you wish ethnic + religious which only compound the problems between the different groups. You did make a good point about the title which could have been tribal AND religious, but I thought that I had addressed this point pretty clearly in the body of the article.
Agreed.
Thank you for this. The history of the region is this: The tribal differences are what causes the fighting initially.
Iyabo