‘The Fulani we lived peacefully with joined gunmen to sack our village’

Life took a twist for Khiritmwa Solomon and her family one faithful Thursday morning when gun men attacked her once peaceful village Aloghom in Plateau State.

It was a beautiful morning and they were ready for the day’s work when they noticed heavy smoke and sounds of gun shots coming from neighbouring village, Cha in Mangu Local Government Area. From that time, time became an important factor to their survival.

They had little time to chart their escape routes from the village to safety. Unfortunately, it was too late already as their village had been surrounded by gun men leaving their escape to God and luck.

“It was on a Thursday morning last month, (May 2023) I can’t recall the date but it was around 6am that we woke up to smoke of burning houses and gun shots from a neighboring village. The attackers brought down the whole community,” she told Saturday Tribune on a phone interview.

“Before we could realise what was going on, we saw Fulani men and their cattle coming towards our village. At that point, we wanted to run but some people advised it was not safe for us to run out at that time, that we should hold on when the Fulanis and their cattle must have passed, and then we would know what direction to follow.

“Later at about 7am, we saw four jungle bikes all carrying three persons wearing black clothes pass through our village and not up to 30 minutes after they passed our house, we began to hear gun shots in our own village, Aloghom,” she told Saturday Tribune during the week.

It was like a dream for Khiritmwa because everything was happening too fast and they had little or no time to think of what to do next and the atmosphere was tensed. They began to run helter-skelter in different directions without knowing where it would lead them to.

She narrated what happened:

“Before we could say jack, they had started burning our houses and people were shouting that we should come out. When we came out, we did not know what direction to run to, to escape from the village because they had surrounded us and we were in the middle.

“It was just God that helped us out alive that day because more than 10 people were killed that day and my husband’s uncle was one among other men, women and even children who died. Before they came to our community, they had unleashed havoc in other communities.

“They started with Murish, where they totally destroyed the community, killed women and children and burnt their houses. They did same in Kantoma, Changal and some other villages in Mangu Local Government Area. They burnt my house, my father in-law’s house and some others of our relatives among several other houses in our village.”

Khiritmwa’s fate is intertwined with that of her entire village. It is the farming season already and every farmer there is expected to be busy tilling the ground. Sadly, people of Aloghom and other communities that came under attack in the local government cannot go back to their farms because they risk being killed by the gun men who have now occupied the villages.

“We don’t go to the farm for now except for some communities that are not much affected, even at that, they go to the farm with fear and they quickly return home,” she said.

Together with her seven children, her husband and other community members, the 35-year-old woman now stays in a primary school premises within the local government area while their attackers “rear their cattle” in their victim’s houses.

“Right now, we are staying in a primary school. I, my seven children and husband all stay here because we cannot go back to our village; if you go there now it’s at your own risk. Because they now rear their cattle in our houses, they bring into our compounds to feed and they move around with guns, when they see you they either shoot you or cut you with machetes,” she lamented while adding that before the ugly incident occurred, her people had lived peacefully with the Fulani people in their village. “But they have now joined camps with those who came to attack her village.”

“We thought we were being hospitable to the Fulanis around us because we were living in peace with them. We did everything together. But before the incident in our village happened, they had moved their children and properties out of the village and camped with some other new faces we did not know, those who came to attack us. So, they move around together to burn our houses and did other destruction,” she told Saturday Tribune.

She thanked the Mwaghavul Development Association (MDA) for assisting the over 100 displaced people with food and other essential materials.

“We thank the Mwaghvul Development Association because they are the ones that are catering to us. They bring us food, toiletries and many other things; the association has done well for us. We are over 100 staying in this primary school, apart from those that are squatting with their relatives.

“We just heard that security has been sent to the village so some men are going to check the situation of things to ascertain if we can go to at least farm on lands close to our houses,” she added.

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