“Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60)
No fewer than 125 dead bodies were recovered and given mass burial in the past three days, Mwaghavul Development Association (MDA), a socio-cultural organisation in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, has said.
The organisation consequently raised the alarm over the spate of killings in the state by gunmen suspected to be herdsmen.
This is as the Plateau State Police Command declared that a total of 117 bodies had been recovered.
Addressing newsmen in Jos, Plateau State, the National President of the Mwaghavul Development Association, Sir, Joseph Gwankat, said apart from the two communities- Fungzai and Kubwat that were initially attacked in the early hours of Tuesday, many other communities and villages also suffered the same fate with many inhabitants killed.
According to the Nation, he said those displaced as a result of the attack were going through a harrowing period as they were lacking food and other amenities. He noted that more than 20,000 people were displaced and are currently taking refuge at the local government secretariat, churches and traditional rulers’ palaces.
“It may interest you to know that since the attack on our communities started on Tuesday, the government has not visited those places attacked by gunmen. Those they have seen were people displaced and roaming around for succour. The local government and the Mwaghavul Development Association cannot handle the situation alone.
“By our estimation, more than 20,000 people have been displaced, though we have yet to take inventory but within three days we had buried 125 people and we are still counting. There are more corpses still floating in ponds that we cannot even access, many are dumped in wells.”
Continuing, he said: “The attack was unprovoked like the one that happened in the early hours of Tuesday. I also want to correct the erroneous impression that it was a clash. It was not a clash but an attack on innocent people. The word unknown gunmen should be discarded because there is no way an attack will take place for one week and the security men will tell us that they are unknown,” he said….
