Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 29, 2022 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
Details are still emerging after a violent raid by Fulani herdsmen Oct. 19 in Benue State, Central Nigeria, reportedly left dozens of Catholic villagers killed.
Police and clergy agree that the raid was in reprisal for the killing of four Fulani herdsmen earlier in the week in a clash between herdsmen and farmers defending their crops.
Accounts differ as to the exact number killed in the Oct. 19 raid.
A county chairman, Kartyo Tyoumbur, told CNA that at least 71 residents of Gbjeji — virtually all of whom were worshippers at a parish branch of St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church — were killed in the attack. He said at least 35 bodies were found after the raid and 36 more bodies were recovered later in adjoining fields. The dead included women and children, along with two policemen, he said.
“The Fulani terrorists came at 6:00 a.m. and began shooting indiscriminately,” a local priest, Father Samuel Fila, who was outside the village at a clerical assembly at the time of the attack, told CNA in a text message. He said an estimated 200 attackers participated in a well-coordinated raid, burning houses and slashing fleeing villagers with machetes.
“The village is currently deserted,” he related.
However, Wale Abass, the Benue State police commissioner, provided a much lower death toll of “no more than 10, including one policeman.”
“The higher figures may be due to newspaper exaggeration or by the fact that some of the families take the corpses of their family members away from the killing zones before an official count may be made,” Abass told CNA in a telephone interview.
“We have a combined team of 20 police and 15 soldiers pursuing leads as to the whereabouts of the attackers and the local men who killed the herders,” he said, adding that no arrests have been made to date.
Benue State — which does not allow open grazing of traveling cattle herds — borders the states of Nasarawa to its north and Taraba to the east and has been the scene of frequent bloody terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists since 2019. The herding clans belong to the Fulani ethnicity, which claims up to 10% of the population of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
Gbeji (pronounced (BEH-jee) is a remote farming town of 5,000 located two miles west of the state border with Taraba. Catholic villagers there receive ministry visits from St. Thomas parish in Afia, about 9 miles south of Gbeji.
The raid came in response to a violent clash earlier in the week. On Monday, Oct. 17, local farmers carrying single-shot craft guns had clashed with and killed four Fulani herdsmen whose herds were threatening the ripe crops, Father Fila told CNA.
“On Tuesday, herdsmen threatened an attack on the village,” he said.
The farmers throughout Benue State, often called the “breadbasket of Nigeria,” are facing crop reductions due to unusual flooding as well as the widespread fear of murder by armed terrorists when they attempt to harvest crops. Millions of Benue farmers and their families are living in displaced persons camps because they have been forced off their land by marauding militias.
A Fulani presidential candidate weighed in after the Gbeji massacre with his condolences to the grieving families in a Facebook post that some interpreted to contain a veiled threat.
“My deepest condolences to the families that may have lost a loved one and to the people and government of Benue State, “ wrote Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
“The continuous escalation of intercommunal violence does not bode well for our national unity,” Abubakar wrote.
But the candidate implied that violence may continue so long as Fulani people are not welcomed into the Benue communities of farmers.
“When our people are well integrated into communities where they live, work, pay taxes and raise their children, they’d be obligated to reciprocate the love and acceptance.”
The statement drew barbs from political analyst Sesugh Akume in Abuja.
“Atiku calls a situation where people sleeping in their houses, on their own land and are attacked by marauders ‘clashes between farmers and herders,’” Akume wrote.
“He further calls it ‘intercommunal violence.’ If it is ‘intercommunal’ it means one community against the other. Pray tell which community had ‘intercommunal clashes’ with Gbeji? What is the name of the community?”
Akume alluded to the fact that large-scale attacks on settlements of Muslim Fulani people by Christian militia are unheard of in modern Nigeria, whereas hundreds of towns and villages in Nigeria’s Middle Belt states have been burned to the ground by Fulani terrorists during the last 10 years.
Benue Gov. Samuel Ortom has been petitioning the federal government for years to waive strict gun control laws that prevent him from equipping volunteer civilian guards with assault rifles to defend rural communities. Governors of other states in the Middle Belt have formed civilian guards for the same purpose in the face of rampant attacks by bandits and terrorists headed by Fulani people. At least 1,484 persons were killed in the Middle Belt states in the first half of 2022, according to data released by the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Some weeks ago, the Nigerian priest in my parish gave a sermon that was simply a list of the deaths of many fellow Catholic Nigerians. I don’t recall the sanctuary ever being so quiet. I tend to keep up with the persecutions of Catholics around the world. I could have mentioned another published on Crisis. A 22 year old female college student beaten to death and set on fire by two fellow male students who were Muslims. Father did not mention who the murderers were. He didn’t have to. They set free on bail.
Biden and Blinken aren’t concerned.
Hearing of these instances – ?reason for the Precious Blood devotion and prayers revealed through a 17 y.o in Nigeria ; Rev. Fr Jim an ardent devotee of same –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlhLrJI_lg
‘Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ ,save us and the whole world ‘ –
hoping that the above is spreading through Nigeria and all our lands !
The interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), http://www.cesj.org, has been meeting with people from the Biafran nationalist movement who are attempting to form a government in exile. Their goal is to gain some kind of official recognition so that instead of being individuals going hat in hand to (other) governments, they can function in a semi-official capacity.
Interestingly, the two delegates we met with this past Friday mentioned the Fulani, which I was able to explain to others in our group were the most notorious slave raiders in Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries, selling entire tribe and nations into slavery.
When the topic of Islam arises, people do not think of peaceful dealings. Conquest is the aim of Islam, as delineated in the Koran. What categorizes Islam is inner strife leading to the outworking of conflict.
The vagaries and principles espoused in the Koran and hadith lead to the conquest of others. While individual muslims can be peaceful, their religion enjoins them to war.
Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Psalm 4:8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Hebrews 12:14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Romans 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Well said Brian. In France money normally used for the upkeep of Catholic Churches has been funelled into a huge mosque building campaign. At the same time as this Freemasonic Islam-friendly frenzy, Catholic France has suffered permanent Terror from Islamic attacks and Bergoglio’s efforts to eradicate Sacred Tradition ever since his public submission to Allah at Abdu Dhabi.
If anyone qualified is reading: as a Catholic Layman I reject as heretical the submission of Jorge Bergoglio at Abdu Dhabi to Allah, denying two central doctrines by ommission: the Blessedy Trinity and the Incarnation. Can I be out of communion with the second bishop in white, but remain in communion with the Still Vicar of Christ who did not sign the submission?
Dear Mike:
You bring insight and give reason to ponder!
God bless you as you pursue justice and exalt Jesus Christ.
Brian
Be careful Brian. Truth has become unpalatable. Though of course you are correct in your post. God be with you.
Dear Annabelle:
Thank you for your kindness. Muslims deserve to hear the truth because the Koran does not seek truth, nor peace, nor love!
This should be an invitation to Muslims to examine what the Koran and hadiths has to say to the follower of Allah and the Prophet of Islam. I do not need to run Islam down for the Koran readily exposes the duplicity and contradictions found therein.
Hopefully this will generate conversation amongst Muslims. To contrast what the Bible says to mankind, opposed to what the Koran says, is a span that can not be bridged except by Jesus Christ.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
May God bless each one who is touched by the preceding Scripture. God wishes all to come to the knowledge of truth and the salvation that Jesus Christ brings.
Brian