Summary:

Hundreds killed by mobs in villages in Central Nigeria.

[8 March 2010] - Nigeria's acting president should make sure that the massacre of at least 200 Christian villagers in central Nigeria on 7 March 2010, is thoroughly and promptly investigated and that those responsible are prosecuted, said Human Rights Watch. The acting president should also ensure that the military and the police act swiftly to protect civilians of all ethnicities at risk of further attacks or reprisal killings, including by conducting regular patrols throughout the vulnerable region, Human Rights Watch said.

The latest killings in Nigeria's restive Plateau State took place in the early morning hours of 7 March, when groups of men armed with guns, machetes, and knives attacked residents of the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot, and Ratsat, 10 kilometres south of Jos, the capital of Plateau State. The dead included scores of women and children.

"This kind of terrible violence has left thousands dead in Plateau State in the past decade, but no one has been held accountable," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It's time to draw a line in the sand. The authorities need to protect these communities, bring the perpetrators to book, and address the root causes of violence."

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said the attacks were committed by Muslim men speaking Hausa and Fulani against Christians, mostly of the Berom ethnicity. Civil society leaders in Jos said that the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for previous attacks against Muslim communities in the area and the theft of cattle from Fulani herdsmen. On 19 January more than 150 Muslim residents were killed in an attack on the nearby town of Kuru Karama.

The witnesses said that groups of armed men attacked the largely Christian village of Dogo Nahawa at around 3 a.m. After surrounding the town, they hunted down and attacked Christian residents, killing many as they tried to flee and burning many others alive. The witnesses said they believed some of the attackers had previously lived in their villages before fleeing during inter-communal tension in 2001, 2008, and earlier in 2010.

Witnesses to the killings, community leaders from Jos, and journalists who visited the villages told Human Rights Watch that they saw bodies, including corpses of young children and babies, inside houses, strewn around the streets, and in the pathways leading out of the villages. A Christian leader who participated today in a mass burial of 67 bodies in Dogo Nahawa said that about 375 people are dead or still missing. Journalists and community leaders who visited the town said that many homes, cars, and other property were burned and destroyed.

"These attacks we see as reprisal attacks from the crisis in January," the Plateau State police spokesperson, Mohammed Lerama, told Human Rights Watch. According to official police figures, the police have so far arrested 98 people in connection with the attacks.

Goodluck Jonathan, who on 9 February was named acting president by Nigeria's National Assembly, responded to the January violence by deploying additional troops to the streets of Jos and surrounding communities. The military presence and patrols have been largely limited to major roads and towns and have not protected many of the smaller communities."

After the worst of the mid-January violence in and around the nearby town of Kuru Karama, Jonathan pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice. "Those found to have engineered, encouraged or fanned the embers of this crisis through their actions or pronouncements will be arrested and speedily brought to justice," he said. "We will not allow anyone to hide under the canopy of group action to evade justice. Crime, in all its gravity, is an individual responsibility, not a communal affair."

While Jonathan's commitments are a step in the right direction, they need to be followed with credible investigations and prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said.

For background information on the conflict, click here.

Further information

• Concluding observations on Nigeria's initial report to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
• More on child rights in Nigeria
  

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Last updated 09/03/2010 01:52:40