JOS: 200 KILLED IN REPRISAL ATTACK

From BUHARI B. BELLO, Jos |

OVER 200 people including women and children have been killed following a reprisal attack on three villages in Jos South Local Government of Plateau State by unidentified people suspected to be Fulani herdsmen. Over 200 houses and cars were torched.

Reports from the villages indicate that the armed persons suspected to be Fulani came to the villages at about 3:30 am on foot and started shooting into the air, causing commotion in the villages early in the morning and killed those who came out of their houses to take cover from the shootings. 

Witnesses said it was in the ensuing confusion that the armed persons surrounded the villages and killed over 200 persons. Corpses of the dead seen by our correspondent indicate that most of those killed were victims of matchet cuts while a few of them had gunshot wounds.

Plateau State Commissioner for Information, Gregroy Yenlong however said that over 500 persons lost their lives in the attack which lasted more then two hours while many he said are receiving treatment at various hospitals in the state.

One of the villagers, Peter Gyang, said the invaders were armed with assorted weapons and that he saw them while hiding in an uncompleted building during the attack. Plateau State Commissioner for Information who spoke with newsmen after visiting the scenes of the violence described the attack as unfortunate, saying “it is nothing but ethnic cleansing.”

Yenlong said the attack appeared more like an ethnic cleansing because all the three villages attacked were Berom villages which makes the state government to suspect that it was aimed at a particular ethnic group.

He said preliminary reports of the attack indicate that the attackers were Fulani and the state government has reasons to suspect the former secretary of the PDP in the state, Malam Saleh Bayeri as having foreknowledge of the attack as  he said Bayeri had been addressing press conferences and making statements that were tantamount to inciting the Fulani people against the Beroms.

The commissioner said the state government was calling for the arrest of Bayeri. Police Public Relations Officer ASP Mohammed Lerama confirmed the incident but could not confirm the number dead or killed and nobody has been arrested in connection with the attack, adding that the Commissioner of Police would brief newsmen over the incident after investigations.

The Gbong Gwom Jos, Da Jacob Gyang Buba who paid a visit to the area described the situation as “sad, heinous, unacceptable and man inhumanity to man,” adding that “things cannot continue like this.” Many houses in the villages were also razed to the ground.

Saleh Bayeri when contacted said he did not know why the state government was linking him with the attack as he said he had since the attack on the Fulani on villages like Kim Kim and Kuru Karama in January this year, been appealing to his people to be calm.

He said he did not know why the state government was quick to point at a suspect when it wanted to but had failed to point at a single person when the Fulanis were the ones that bore the brunt of the attack in the January 17 crisis and advised the state government to dwell more on returning peace to the state rather than making inflammatory statements.

However the Chief Medical Director of Plateau Specialist Hospital, Dr. Pam Dantong who took journalists round some of the deposited corpses said eight dead bodies were brought to the hospital and nine injured persons were currently receiving treatment at the hospital.

It would be recalled that dusk to dawn curfew has been imposed on Jos, the state capital since the eruption of crises in January 2010 by the Plateau State Government. The present crisis can be regarded as an offshoot of the January crises in the state capital and environs. Hundreds of lives were lost in those incidents.