No less than 808 murdered in Southern Kaduna, Catholic Church says

At least 808 southern Kaduna Christians have been murdered in 53 villages across the four local government areas in the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen, the leadership of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan, Kaduna State has claimed.

The statement by the church further gave statistics of the effects of the attack to include, 57 people injured, farm produce estimated at N5.5 billion destroyed, a total of 1,422 houses and 16 churches burnt.

The carnage by bandits suspected to be Fulani herdsmen is said to spread across Kaura, Sanga, Jama’a and Kauru local government areas. The attacks have been persistent on these communities.

A Catholic Church leader in the affected areas was reported as saying that the herdsmen and their ilk turned the towns into killing fields and killed mostly women, children and the elderly who couldn’t run for cover.

He went further to state that the level of barbarity was such that pregnant women got their wombs turn out and massacred before their children. And these innocent children were not spared either.

According to the church leader, the level of inhumanity meted on southern Kaduna by these ‘brutish beasts’ “was never witnessed even in the brutal tyranny and regime of Adolf Hitler. What is most intriguing is the level of sophistication of weapons like AK 47, machine guns and many other deadly instruments of death which were freely used in carrying out the attacks,” he said.

The Church leader said that the brutishness of these self-styled Jihadists sends shivers down the spines of the traumatised people of southern Kaduna, adding that in the Godogodo and Pasakori attacks, that the military merely watched and supervised the burning of homes and when the youths mobilised to repel the attackers, the soldiers deliberately blocked them from entering the town.

The statement was signed by the Vicar General of the Diocese, Rev. Fr. Ibrahim Yakubu; Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okolo, Chancellor, Rev. Fr. Aaron Tanko Rev. Fr. Williams Abba and President, Laity Council, Mr. Joseph Bayei (KSJ).

“It didn’t take the government of el-Rufai time to figure out what to do to tackle armed robbery and cattle rustling in the Birnin Gwari area. Within the shortest possible time, soldiers were deployed and many of the cattle rustlers and bandits were either killed or arrested and cows in their hundreds were rescued.

“This is commendable and we are happy that the Fulanis in Birnin Gwari have been rescued from these bandits. If the government can deploy helicopters and soldiers to Birnin Gwari to help in tracking down the terrorists, why is the same government unwilling to deploy the same soldiers and helicopters to Southern Kaduna to help flush out the Fulani herdsmen terrorising indigenes of Southern Kaduna?” the statement noted.

The Catholic church had rejected a N100million donated by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai a couple of months ago for the reconstruction of worship places damaged in the affected areas and said the money should be used instead to compensate those who have been rendered homeless.

A 24-hour curfew had been imposed on the affected areas by the state government following the incessant attacks, as combined team of soldiers and anti-riot policemen were deployed in the area to maintain law and order following recent protest by people of the area over the killings.