A Christian youth organization is leading calls for a crackdown on Islamist Fulani militias amid a surge in violent attacks in Plateau State and other parts of Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
Following renewed attacks in Nigeria’s Plateau State, Christian youth organization Berom Youth-Moulders Association (BYM) has issued a statement calling for urgent military action to stem the tide of anti-Christian violence. It argues that Fulani militants are intent on taking over Christian communities. And it warns of a repeat of last year’s Christmas massacre in Plateau State in which over 200 people died.
The BYM statement follows an attack on Barkin Ladi local government area on November 6. Reports said a large number of Fulani gunmen invaded Rakwok community at 10am, shooting dead three young men as they were going about their business and firing randomly at others in the vicinity. At least two people were injured.
Visiting the scene a day later, the Barkin Ladi executive chairman, Pwajok Stephen Gyang, condemned “the unchecked violence” that has repeatedly beset the area and called for security reinforcements.
For over six years, militias drawn from the Muslim-majority Fulani ethnic group have been attacking Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt – a fertile region stretching across central Nigeria from west to east, populated by hundreds of indigenous, majority-Christian ethnic groups. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the attacks, and millions displaced.
Because the Fulani are predominantly herders, and the indigenous Christians predominantly farmers, the attacks have sometimes been explained as a “farmer-herder conflict” exacerbated by climate change; however, Fulani ambitions to conquer the Middle Belt date back at least to the Dan Fodio jihad of 1804.
Fears of a new massacre
The statement received by CSI calls on the military task force Operation Safe Haven (OPSH) “as a matter of urgency” to take action to prevent Plateau State from becoming “a theater of bloodshed as witnessed in the past.”
“It’s our firm view that the continued killings, ambushes, willful destruction of crops and harvests of our people’s farmlands… are not only their [Fulani] deliberate efforts towards totally taking over of villages and communities, but also attempts to revisit our people with another round of massacre [like that] witnessed on Christmas Eve last year,” the statement continues.
From December 23 to 25, 2023, a wave of coordinated attacks across the central Nigerian state targeted Christians celebrating the religious holiday. Over 200 people were killed in one area – Bokkos – alone. A local pastor, Dawell Luka Gideon, told CSI how a time of community celebration had abruptly turned into one of horror as the assailants struck: Dawell lost his wife and five children in the Christmas Eve attack.
Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang did not mince his words when he described the killings, in a post on X, as a “Christmas genocide.”
Advocates of peace
In its statement, the Christian youth organization offers its support to the military taskforce and Governor Mutfwang in advocating for peace and upholding democracy. “However, the killer Fulani should note that our peaceful disposition shouldn’t be taken as weakness,” it states.
The BYM appeals to the authorities to track down and arrest the killers, compensate farmers for the destruction of their crops and theft of property, and provide medical support to the injured.
It also appeals to the Plateau task force on land grabbing to speed up the process of recovering land captured by militant herdsmen.
Last year, BYM President Solomon Dalyop Mwantiri estimated that Fulani invaders had taken over at least 102 villages in the state.
Random attacks
In recent weeks, Fulani militant raids on Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt have intensified, news reports suggest. Three people, including a mother and son, were killed in two apparently random attacks on Christians in Plateau State on November 3 and October 27, according to Morning Star News.
Meanwhile, in another Middle Belt state – Benue – recent attacks by militant herdsmen have left over 20 dead. On October 30, militants slaughtered 15 in a two-hour raid on the village of Anyiin. A few days later Fulani militiamen invaded the predominantly Christian farming community of Ayilomo, killing six.
“The Fulani herdsmen keep attacking us almost on a daily basis, killing Christians at will and igniting fire on our houses and places of worship,” an Ayilomo community leader, Paul Adetsav, told Morning Star News. Referring to the armed herdsmen’s destruction of crops, Adetsav noted, “Hunger has become an epidemic, killing us and our children since we have nothing to eat.”
According to the Christian news agency, Adegwa Uba, another local resident, pleaded for the Nigerian government to act urgently to save lives. “We are dying, please hear our cry,” Uba said.
