24th November 2022
Human rights activist Ike on site during attack by jihadist Fulani militias: "Christian families massacred in cold blood while they sleep" - "Christians in need" sees the threat of civil war
Vienna/Abuja (kath.net/KAP): According to local church representatives, 20 people were killed in an attack by jihadist Fulani militias on a Christian village in Plateau state in central Nigeria. During the attack on the village of Maikatago near the district capital of Bokkos on Tuesday night, armed men set fire to the huts of the sleeping residents and shot at people who tried to escape from the flames, the human rights organization "Christians in Need" (CiN) said, citing the Human rights activist and former Vicar General of the Diocese of Enugu, Obiora Ike, in Vienna on Thursday.
Ike said he himself was visiting the village during the attack, where gunmen had killed a dozen residents in an attack a week earlier. "Fulani jihadists broke into the village where I live on Tuesday night and massacred Christian families in cold blood while they were sleeping," said Ike, who was shocked and unharmed. He is now trying to help the survivors with food, comfort, prayer, funerals, emergency shelter. The human rights activist Ike is a project partner of "Christians in Need".
According to the aid organization, it immediately made 5,000 euros available so that the victims of the attack could get food, clothing and also tents for accommodation in the open field. Local security guards are also paid to guard and protect people at night. According to CiN, the police or army were not initially on site. "If the slaughter of Christians - some are already calling it genocide - should not end and the government should continue to remain blind to the Islamic terror, then a civil war is threatening in the most populous country in Africa," warned CiN General Secretary Elmar Kuhn.
Despite his trauma after the night-time attack, Obiora Ike visited the local provincial governor Simon Bako Lalong on Wednesday and filed a complaint. The aid organization told the human rights activist that it is terrible what religious fanaticism can do out of hate and ignorance: "The voices of peace must drown out the voices of fanaticism. Religions must serve peace and progress."
