Slaughter

ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa, Jonathan Racho, interviews a Christian leader living in a nearby city:

Jonathan: Have you notified the security forces about the attack?

Church Leader: We have lost confidence in the security forces in our country, Nigeria. We are moving into a situation which is not good for our country. Many in the military, especially the army, is taking sides.

As soon as I heard about the attack at about 2 AM, I gave the report to the security operatives and the security operatives went to the village. But they refused to enter the village even when the Muslim attackers were shooting at Christians.

When Christians from a nearby village came to intervene to stop the killing, they were blocked by the security forces from entering the village. The security told the Christians who came for rescue that the village is under curfew and they can’t enter the village until 6 AM.

The Muslim attackers finished their operation at 5:30 AM. So by the time the curfew was out at 6 AM, the Muslims slaughtered all the people in the village.

If the security force entered the village as soon as they arrive, many people could have been saved.

The security only started to drive into the village around 5:30 AM. And when the attackers saw that they are coming, they run into the nearby mountains.

Jonathan: Reports indicate that the Muslims mostly attacked women and children. Is that also what you observed?

Church Leader: Most of the victims are women and children. Children as young as 6 weeks are among the victims.

Jonathan: Are the Muslims getting support from outside Nigeria?

Church Leader: I can tell you that the Muslims also get support from outside the country. We suspect that they get some of their weapons from other countries. Recently an airplane was arrested in Kanu [one of Islamic cities in Nigeria]. The airplane was filled with ammunitions. Up to this moment, the officials have not explained to us where that plane came from, who own those war equipments and where they were taking them to.

Even right now, we have reliable information that Muslims are coming to attack us again. They have said that they will force everybody in Plateau State [the state where the attack happened] to become Muslims.

Jonathan: What is the situation of Christians in the area now?

Church Leader: Christians are intimidated and getting frustrated. Every Muslim in our area has guns. We [the Christians] don’t own guns. We are really intimidated. We need assistance from outside Nigeria because we don’t have confidence in this country. We have lost confidence in the security forces in our country. Most of the military officials are Muslims. We want the United Nation to come to our aid.

Jonathan: Some people claim that this is not a religious conflict; rather its a conflict between ethnic groups. Is that a right assessment?

Church Leader: The Muslims started to come to this place a hundred years ago to Islamize the area. They have not been able to do that. So they claim that the conflict is ethnic not religious. But this is not true. Every time they attack Christians, they shout “allahu akbar,” they organize their attacks in mosques, they burn all our churches, and they burn all our Christian schools. So it’s a religious not an ethnic conflict. They also burn Christian homes and properties.

They also look for Islamic support throughout the Islamic world. Unfortunately, Christians don’t know where to go to get support. The Muslims also go to Western countries and claim that the conflict is ethnic and everyone believes them. And because of that Christians in America and Europe see Christians in Nigeria as killers and destroyers. But that is not what our gospel preaches.

Even in this latest attack the Muslims burned down three churches and houses of priests and pastors. Now the pastors are homeless together with their families.

ICC’s Jonathan Racho interviewed eye witnesses of the violence against Christians in Nigeria in which over 500 Christians, mainly women and children, were killed by Muslims.

Interview with Witness 1

Jonathan: Tell me what you witnessed on the night of March 7 when Muslims attacked your village.

Witness 1: At around 3 AM on Sunday night, we heard very heavy gun shots. People were scared, so some children started to run outside the village. Then they were massacred outside the village. I was watching them [the attackers]. They were speaking in Hausa-Fulani [local languages spoken by Muslim majority ethnic groups in Nigeria] and English languages. They camped at a Roman Catholic church, near the place I was hiding. They used the Catholic church to hide some of their weapons. They burned down people’s house and when people run outside of their house, they slaughtered them with machetes. They had guns, but they killed most the people with machetes.

Jonathan: Were the attackers making statements while killing the Christians?

Witness 1: They were shouting “allahu akbar, allahu akbar” [God is great] as they kill Christians.

Jonathan: How many Christian bodies have you seen after the attack?

Witness 1: The Muslims attacked three villages. There are corpses littering all over the villages. There are also Christians who are still missing. I have seen more than 200 dead bodies. There are also wounded Christians who have been taken to hospital.

Interview with Witness 2

Jonathan: Tell me what you saw when the Muslims attacked your village on the night of March 7.

Witness 2: They used a Roman Catholic church as their camp. They used petroleum to burn people’s houses. Some of the attackers had guns and others machetes. They used the machetes for killing people.

I hid myself and watched everything they were doing. They were using Hausa and Fulani languages in order to identify their own people among the villagers. They killed many women and children.

Jonathan: Where the attackers making statements while killing the Christians?

Witness 2: They were shouting “allahu akbar, allahu akbar.” If you hear them shouting “allahu akbar, allahu akbar,” it means they have killed somebody. I have seen with my eyes when they slaughter Christians with machetes. I have seen around 287 bodies. And there are about 150 Christians missing.

Where is the worldwide outrage at such an atrocity?
How could the murder of a 6-week-old child be revenge for anything?

On 7 March 2010, in the middle of the night, Muslims murdered 500 Christian women and children in the village of Dogo Nahawa, near the city of Jos. The Muslims massacred children as young as six weeks old.

Muslim extremists invaded the village at 2 a.m. local time and slaughtered Christians with machetes. In some cases, the Muslims wiped out entire families. Of those murdered, 380 were buried in a mass grave. The police have arrested 93 people and recovered guns, knives and other types of weapons from the suspects.

The security officials knew what was happening but did not intervene.

The Reverend Chuwang Avou, General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Plateau State said Christians from the village called him as soon as the Muslims started their attack. He immediately alerted the security officials.

The security officials went to the village, where they witnessed Muslims were killing Christians, but didn’t intervene to stop the massacre. When other Christians from surrounding villages attempted to intervene, the security forces stopped them by stating they couldn’t enter the village until 6 a.m. The Muslims carried out the massacre until 5:30 a.m. and then left the village.

Reverend Avou, said, “Christians are intimidated. We need assistance from outside Nigeria because we don’t have confidence in this country. We have lost confidence in the security forces in our country . . . . Military people, especially the army, are taking sides. We want the United Nation to come to our aid.”

Jonah John Jang, the Governor of Plateau State, where the attack took place, confirmed the failure of the military to stop the killing. According to the Nigerian newspaper, This Day, on March 6, at 9 p.m., the governor reported the possibility of the attack to Major-General Maina Saleh, the commanding officer of the military in the area. But the military failed to take actions despite the warning by the governor.

According to Governor Jang, the massacre “could have been avoided, if they acted on my report.”

It was a Jihad attack and not an ethnic conflict.

Nigerian Christian leaders expressed outrage that the Muslim attack has been labeled “ethnic” violence by the media and politicians. According to Christian leaders, the violence is part of an Islamic Jihad against Christian minorities in northern Nigeria.

One eyewitness said the Muslims were “shouting Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar (God is great). If you hear them shouting Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, then it means that they have killed somebody.” Church leaders said that the Muslims are bent on forcefully converting everyone in Plateau State to Islam.

Reverend Avou added, “The Muslims have training grounds in Nigeria, and they get their weapons from outside the country.”

During the attack, the Muslims burned down a Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church of West Africa and the Church of Christ in Nigeria.

Check back with us for further updates on this breaking story. We plan to post interviews with Nigerian locals and eye witnesses to give you the real story behind this massacre. Please alert your friends!