Christians face murder squad
MORE than 1,000 Christians have been slaughtered in the “killing fields” of Nigeria since January, according to a report.
The Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (Hart) wants the UK government to make future foreign aid dependent on action to halt the campaign of terror.
It estimates more than 6,000 people have been killed since 2015, largely by the nomadic and predominantly Muslim Fulani group.
The report features harrowing accounts by survivors of attacks and comes as fears mount for the future of the threatened communities.
Antonia Aje, 38, from Kaduna state, northwest Nigeria, said: “I heard gunshots and the attack started. My seven-year-old was too heavy to carry.
“We ran, with bullets all around. We hid. When we returned, I saw my brother-in-law’s body, hacked by a machete... Our home is destroyed.
“The hospital was burnt. They tried to burn the roof of the church by piling up the chairs, like a bonfire.”
A pastor in Borno said: “Every day we carry new corpses to the cemetery. They kill farmers. They destroy our homes and churches. they kidnap and rape women.”
Baroness Caroline Cox, the founder
of Hart, says the Fulani group is largely responsible for the attacks on Christian communities.
There are longstanding tensions between farmers and herders but Baroness Cox argues it is “too simplistic to label these atrocities as driven by desertification, climate change or competition for resources”.
The Hart report warns: “The situation fulfils the criteria of genocide and should be recognised as such, with the responsibility of the international community to respond accordingly.”
It follows a Government commissioned review by the Bishop of Truro, Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen.
It concluded that although the conflict cannot simply be seen in terms of religion the Fulani attacks “have repeatedly demonstrated a clear intent to target Christians”.
Ayo Adeoyin of the International Organisation for Peace and Social Justice said: “The Christians in northern Nigeria and in the middle belt of the country have been very seriously and brutally impacted.”