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PLATEAU CRISIS
630 killed in Yelwa, says Red Cross
By Suleiman Mohammed & Rakiya Muhammad, in
Jos with agency reports
The ethno-religions crisis that erupted in Yelwa town of Shendam local government
area of Plateau State has so far claimed the lives of more than 630 people, the Red Cross has confirmed.
The crisis which resurfaced last Sunday has forced Muslim residents of the locality
to flee Shendam which they said had become unsafe, and a senior Red Cross official told the AFP news agency yesterday that at least 630 people were killed
in the renewed violence, with many left with injuries.
"The figure is correct. All the bodies were gathered at the traditional leader�s
house and then were buried behind it," Umar Abdu Mamairiga, the Nigerian Red Cross national disaster management
officer told AFP.
Umar Abdu Mamairiga said that although the community talked about 630, "but
there might be more," while confirming a figure given to reporters by local councillor, Yakubu Haruna, 35
who stood by the side of a burial ground in Yelwa town.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
also reported
that the attackers, armed with sophisticated weapons, surrounded Yelwa town on Sunday and "launched a killing
spree that lasted 24 hours. Some members of the militia - who came from four neighbouring Christian ethnic groups
were stripped to the waist and painted black with charcoal," reported the BBC.
Speaking to Daily Trust in an interview recently, a community leader and chairman of the ex-officio committee of Tatgong
Development Organisation (TADO), Yelwa, Malam Lawal Adamu Waziri, said residents resolved to quit the town collectively
because of the incessant attacks.
"With the tactical withdrawal of police and soldiers brought here to ensure
law and order on the eve of the latest attacks on us, we have no option but to agree with suspicions of the tacit
endorsement of the massacre of our people by some prominent personalities in the state," Waziri said.
Up to 500 families have taken refuge in Bauchi State, as the federal government
despatched a combined team of armed mobile policemen and military personnel to restore peace in the area.
The presidential peace initiative committee on the Plateau crisis set up by the
federal government under the chairmanship of the Emir of Zazzau, Dr. Shehu Idris, met Wednesday in Jos and called
for restraint, while the northern governors forum condemned the situation, as they urged Governor Joshua Dariye
to take a decisive action on perpetrators of the crisis.
Meanwhile, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has called on the Plateau
State government to release the various reports of commissions of inquiry into the crisis and ensure that those
indicted by the reports were punished.
Addressing a press conference in Jos yesterday, chairman of the state�s chapter
of CAN, Reverend Yakubu Pam, who described the disturbances as acts of terrorism, urged the state government to
"make bold to fight all acts of terrorism headlong by calling a spade a spade".
The CAN chairman also called for the immediate arrest of those it described as illegal
foreigners from Niger and Chad Republics, alleging that their continued stay was counter-productive to the search
for a lasting peace in the state, and alleged that the "illegal foreigners" had "constituted themselves
into not only a source of social menace and a security risk but have become a serious threat to national security."
While condemning the continued loss of lives and property, he demanded that government
should pay adequate compensation to the families of the victims.
The state government also yesterday denied asking Muslims to vacate the state, denying
an interview with the state governor, Chief Joshua Dariye which suggested this, which has generated a lot of controversy.
The director of press affairs, Mr. Stanley Bentu, said in a press statement that
there was no place in the interview that the governor asked Muslims to leave the state, and that the comments attributed
to the governor were interpreted out of context.
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