Nigeria: Over 5,500 Christians Flee After Islamists Attack Christian Villages, Military Plans Major Offensive Against Boko Haram

Angola Press – “ABUJA – More than 5,500 people fled their homes after attacks this month on mainly Christian villages in central Nigeria in which over 100 people were killed, the Red cross said Tuesday.

The violence in the villages in Plateau state ’caused dozens of casualties and forced more than 5,500 people to flee their homes. Over 25 villages were affected,’ the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

On July 7, gunmen suspected of belonging to the Fulani tribe stormed mainly Christian villages and killed more than 80 people.

Another 22 people, including two senior politicians, were killed the next day in an attack, also blamed on the Fulani, on the funeral of the July 7 victims.

‘People left their homes and ran to safety with only the clothes they were wearing. They need everything to survive in this kind of situation,’ said Julia Unger, ICRC’s head in Jos, the state capital, in the statement.” Read more.

Nigerian Military Plans Major Operation After Jos Attacks – “Nigeria’s military appears ready to begin a major operation to raid suspected hideouts across the central Nigerian Plateau State, where insurgents responsible for last week’s violence are thought to be based. More than 200 people were killed in sectarian attacks between mainly Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian Birom villagers near the city of Jos over the weekend of July 9. Police blamed the violence on tribal differences over land, but an Islamist insurgent group, Boko Haram, claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the wholesale massacre of 63 Christian parishioners taking refuge in a preacher’s house.” Read more.

Flashback: Boko Haram: Our Goal is to Eliminate Followers of Christ – “Terrorist organisation Boko Haram has issued a statement making clear that its goal is to eliminate followers of Christ from Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. ‘The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state … We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu,’ a spokesman for the group, Abul Qaqa, is said to have told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri over the phone.” Read more.