3-y-o girl dies of injuries, 9 others hacked to death in Fulani attack on Christian village
Written by Sunlight Radio America on June 7, 2020
A 3-year-old girl and nine others died in north-western Nigeria’s Kaduna State in an early morning attack on a Christian village carried out by armed Muslim herdsmen of Fulani origin, according to a report.
The girl, identified as Elizabeth Samaila, suffered multiple machete lacerations to the head. She died in a hospital Thursday, the day after the attack on the Tudun Agwalla community in Kajuru Local Government Area, the U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported.
Also on Thursday, families of nine others who were hacked to death with machetes buried them in a mass grave. Six of the nine were identified as Richard Yusuf, Kefas Yusuf, Fidelis Wada, Kachia, Genesis Soja, and Rahab Soja.
Eight-year-old Rita Friday, who was also injured on the head, was among an unknown number of Christian villagers who were wounded in the attack, CSW said, adding that seven people remained unaccounted for.
“What is particularly unacceptable is that her death is the latest to occur in a series of attacks which continue unabated,” CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said. “Southern Kaduna is steadily being transformed into killing fields, either due to a gross failure of governance, or official indifference and acquiescence.”
Fulani herders routinely brutally attack predominantly Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. While some believe the nomadic herders launch attacks as they look for grazing pastures, the radicals target Christian villages in a similar manner as the Boko Haram terror group that terrorizes the northern regions of the country.
In a special report, titled “Nigeria: A Killing Field of Defenseless Christians,” released earlier this year, the Anambra-based nongovernmental organization International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) estimated that about 11,500 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2015 by Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, and highway bandits.
A recent estimate by Intersociety suggests that over 620 Christians have been killed in Nigeria so far in 2020.
“International pressure must now be brought to bear on both the state and federal authorities to ensure protection for these vulnerable communities, and that effective action is taken to disarm all armed non-state actors and bring the perpetrators of these horrific atrocities to justice,” Thomas said.
