by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Islamic Fulani herdsmen are reported to have murdered a further 37 Christians in Nigeria’s Plateau state, as repeated warnings about a Christian genocide taking place in the West African country appear to be of no avail, International Christian Concern reports.
Tens of thousands of Christians have been murdered by Islamic militants in Nigeria in recent years and, in April this year, Commissioner Gary L. Bauer of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) described the country as a “killing field” for Christians.
Suspected Fulani herdsmen killed 22 Christians in two attacks on villages in Plateau state in April and May, ICC said. In one attack on Kwi village in Riyom County on May 23, eight members of a single-family were murdered together with six other Christians. “Fourteen Christians were butchered to death, including children,” Solomon Mandiks, an area resident and Christian rights activist, told Morning Star News.“Eight members of one family have all been killed. This is besides an additional six other Christians killed by the herdsmen in the village.”
Local Christian leaders have reported their belief that Islamic extremist Fulani herdsmen are intent on wiping out Christians from Nigeria, ICC said. According to local pastors, these militants conduct violent attacks but yet walk around freely in the presence of government security forces. This is even though Fulani militia is now the fourth most deadly terror group in the world, surpassing Boko Haram in terms of danger for Christians: it is believed the Islamic government is enabling the atrocities to continue.
“All too often this violence is attributed to mere “bandits” or explained away as hostility between farmers and herdsmen,” Commissioner Bauer said in the USCIRF 2021 annual report “While there is some truth in these assertions, they ignore the main truth: radical Islamists are committing violence inspired by what they believe is a religious imperative to ‘cleanse’ Nigeria of its Christians. They must be stopped.”