Terrorists Take Over Schools After Months of Attacks in Plateau State: Officials
By Masara Kim | Truth Nigeria | March 16, 2024
Under the scorching sun on a Thursday afternoon in Bokkos town, 8-year-old Precious Musa holds her notebook on her lap with high seriousness. She sat on bare, red dirt along with hundreds of other homeless children in a camp for internally displaced people (IDP’s) at the County seat of Bokkos. But Musa takes school with a sense of mission and listens intently to a lecture on arithmetic without benefit of white board.
She is among 19,000 Christians displaced by brutal attacks during last year’s Black Christmas massacres, 45 miles south of Jos, the capital of Plateau State. Although many would pity Musa, this is a good day for her. Even now she holds on to her dream of becoming an architect.
I know that mindset, because 30 years ago I sat in a classroom in Butura Kampani and dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I ended up as a conflict reporter for TruthNigeria, but my eyes are still on the stars.
The terrorist attacks came almost simultaneously to 36 villages, according to military authorities, starting on December 23 and peaking on Christmas Eve. More than 295 people were killed in the onslaught lasting several days according to Rev. Chris Damcher, the Chairman of the Plateau State Civil Society Organizations.
TruthNigeria estimates a force of approximately 3,000 armed men carried out the massacres as residents reported being swarmed by more than 100 in every village.
Major General Abdulsalam Abubakar, the Commander of a 2000-man military task force in Plateau State said his troops were overwhelmed during the invasions. But the “Operation Safe Haven” task force had sufficient time to prepare. TruthNigeria had published a series of advance warnings of the attacks since November, giving exact details of the targeted areas.
The attacks were described as the worst instance of genocide in the country in recent years and drew global outrage from both U.S.- and European lawmakers.
In the midst of the chaos, the terrorists reduced Musa’s village of Mangor to ashes, killing more than 40 people according to town leaders. Victims included at least 20 women and children who met a gruesome fate while seeking refuge in a nearby stream bed.
The previous day, Dec. 23, in a village just 10 miles away, Purity Panmun Danat, 3 years old, was not so lucky. She is the sole survivor of her family’s massacre after their village, Kambar-Pelli, was attacked. Purity witnessed the slaughter of her father, mother, three brothers, and a sister. Purity miraculously survived when her mother hid her under a curtain. Sixteen people in Kambar-Pelli, were killed that night by the marauders whom residents said spoke the Fulani dialect.
The Fulani tribe, known throughout Africa as skilled herders and fundamentalist Muslims, have contributed an outsized share of leaders to Nigeria’s government since independence in 1960. On the downside, Fulani jihadist groups are responsible for six times more Christian deaths than the ISIS insurgency known as Boko Haram in recent years.
But the attacks are ongoing. Fulani terrorists killed two people making a living in a mining camp south of Jos the capital of Plateau state on March 6.