Islamists Kill Christians in Plateau State

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

ABUJA (Worthy News)-- Ethnic Fulani Muslims razed a church and killed 10 Christians in Nigeria's Plateau state in September, according to Morning Star News.

Jihadist herdsmen attacked the Bokkos area by shooting Christian farmers and setting ablaze 15 homes and an Assemblies of God church, according to the Rev. Manasseh Duwong of the Church of Christ in Nations at Mbar.

They were shouting, "Allahu Akbar" and chanting: "We must wipe out these infidel Christians today," Duwong told Morning Star.

The Rev. Moses Kungyep -- secretary of the area Regional Church Council -- told Morning Star that unless the Nigerian government can curtail the Fulani herdsmen attacks, more Christian farming communities will be displaced.

"We appeal to the federal government to take measures to check these attacks, because our church members, whose major occupation is in farming and agricultural production, are dying of hunger, as they are not able to go to their farms because they are being attacked on their farms too by these Muslim gunmen."

And should these Christian farms fail, Nigeria will also starve.

The soldiers assigned to guard the farms against attacks by herdsmen complain that they need more supplies and equipment to repel the Fulani Muslims, but many Christians farmers see this as just an excuse.

Fulani herdsmen trying to graze their cattle have always had adversarial relations with Christian farmers in Nigeria's Plateau, Bauchi, Kaduna, Taraba and Adamawa states, but now Islamist groups are exploiting this longstanding property dispute along religious lines.