Massacre In Benue As Herdsmen Kill 28 Residents In Guma, Security Operatives Demand Money To Find Corpses

No fewer than 28 people have been murdered by Fulani herdsmen in revived attacks on Mbawa Council Ward in the Guma Local Government area of Benue State, North Central Nigeria.

A resident of the place who gave his name simply as Barnabas confirmed the ongoing attacks on the Mbawa Council Ward, regretting that soldiers and policemen brought to protect the people did nothing to stop the herdsmen wielding sophisticated weapons.

According to him, the police operatives are also demanding N100,000 to search for the corpses of those killed on their farmlands.
He said “Since 2018 up till today our community and other Communities in Guma local government have been under Fulani herdsmen attacks.

But now it is getting worse especially since two weeks now, we have not rested in this community.
“Between Sunday and Wednesday, they have killed 28 persons. On Wednesday being yesterday they killed seven, on Tuesday they killed eight, on Monday they killed seven and on Sunday it was six they killed. So that is how it continues, it has become a daily massacre and it is even close to Internal Displaced Camp (IDPs) in Daudu in Mbawa Council Ward and the army camp is also there.

In fact soldiers can see those Fulanis with weapons and they will not do anything.
“Last week the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Guma police division; I don’t know how he managed to get the Fulanis and called all our chiefs and some elders for a meeting with the Fulanis. At the meeting he told our people that the Fulanis want to come and live in our community and that we should allow them to live with us.

“Recently the same Fulanis killed 36 persons and today they are here saying that they want to come and live with the same people.
“There is military and police presence and every day, they are killing our people; not one, not two, not three. Every day the killing continues and the federal government and security agencies are not saying anything. This is how people are dying every day. This is genocide; they want to wipe us out.”
He added, “Among the seven persons they killed on Thursday, four of them were volunteer guards and three were our comrades.

They were killed and one was found and two are still in the bush. It is now that the people are preparing to use vehicles to go for the second time to look for their corpses and security agents are here. We even went to the police station here and DPO asked that we should look for N100,000 to give them to escort us to look for their corpses.”
Lamenting the complicit of the security agencies, especially the military and police, Barnabas said that when they went to the bush with some soldiers and policemen to recover the corpses of those killed at that point, soldiers asked them not to go further and that Fulanis were in the forest nearby with guns.

“How did they know? For me the security agencies are accomplices in the ongoing killings in our communities,” he stated.