At least 160 Nigerian Christians were murdered and 300 injured in a series of terror attacks over Christmas weekend, according to multiple reports.
The attacks on at least 26 Christian communities made it “one of the most violent [times] in the area’s history,” Maria Lozano, a representative for the group Aid to the Church in Need, told the Catholic News Agency.
President of the Christian Association of Nigeria Archbishop Daniel Okoh condemned the attacks, which some have blamed on the Muslim Fulani militia.
“We condemn these acts of violence in the strongest possible terms. The burning down of houses, and worship centers, and the destruction of properties worth millions of naira is not only a criminal act but also a direct assault on our shared values of peace, unity, and mutual respect,” Okoh said, reports CNA.
The governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang, explained in an interview with a local news organization how more than 60 communities have been displaced by terrorists.
“When people are dislocated from their villages and they have to run for shelter … if they stay away from those communities for a sustained period of time, the terrorists would come in,” Mutfwang said, according to the Daily Trust. “As I am talking to you today (Tuesday), in Riyom Local Government, in Barikin Ladi Local Government, schools have been occupied by these terrorists ...”
He said the occupation has been happening for years
“I can tell you these schools that are being occupied, it didn’t just start now, some of those schools have been occupied in the last three, four, five years,” he continued. “Children therefore in those schools have not been able to go to school, they have to relocate, we even have primary health care centers abandoned because of these terrorists which means that our health care system is put in jeopardy.”
The Fulani are a majority Muslim ethnic group, one of the largest in Nigeria. Fulani terrorist militias have waged jihad against the Christian communities of Nigeria’s Middle Belt – the states that form the border between the majority Muslim north and majority Christian south – for decades, committing acts of genocide and occupying Christian land left by the dead and displaced.
The Nigerian government has historically done little to protect Christian communities from Fulani terrorists; federal officials initially announced the death toll of the Christmas attacks in Plateau to be just 16 people.
“Fundamentalist Muslims are in control of all the security organs of State including the police, the military, and intel agencies,” Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern (ICC), explained to Breitbart News in December. “Fundamentalist Muslim actors embedded in the security apparatus of the Nigerian State in Nigeria have aided and abetted the Muslim Fulani’s slow-moving anti-Christian genocide and/or jihad for two decades now.” (Breitbart)
Over Christmas there was yet another massacre of Christians in northern Nigeria. Six years ago I reported from there on the massacres of Christians carried out by Muslim, Fulani militia. I still cannot understand why the world does not care. https://t.co/6gdG8Arkvo
— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) December 26, 2023
Nigeria's Vice President, Kashim Shettima, visited with survivors on Wednesday.
“When one community bleeds, the entire nation feels the pain. The pain we feel now transcends ethnicity or religion, geography or politics. The grief that binds us is a testament to our shared humanity, not differences,” Shettima, reports Africa News.
We are grateful to the President, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was represented by the Vice President Kashim Shettima for treating the situation in Plateau State as an urgent one.
— Caleb Mutfwang (@CalebMutfwang) December 27, 2023
I appreciate the Vice President for stating how deeply shaken they are by the heinous… pic.twitter.com/LM27ZEsxLt
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