Slaughter

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.