| Witnesses tell of horror as gunmen converged on a small village in central Nigeria, searching the homes and shooting specific people one by one, including a local pastor.“It was chaos. It was horrifying. They pulled out people and just shot them. It was like out of a bad dream or movie,” one local resident told Bikyamasr.com via telephone, asking that their name remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
Other Witnesses said the gunmen appeared to be looking for specific people, and among the dead was Innocent Chukwuemeka, a pastor at the Assemblies of God Church, in the Kaduna state. Protesters took to the central square in Kufara village in the afternoon, expressing their anger at the raids and in particular over the death of Chukwuemeka, who was killed in front of his wife and children. “The attackers were young men, between the ages of 18 to 40, some were in mufti (civilian clothes) while others wore camouflage-like uniform. They promised to come back to unleash more terror, while burning down houses,” eyewitness Faana Bako said in a shaken voice. The state’s police spokesman Aminu Lawal said an investigation was ongoing and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. The area has seen unrest in the past between Christians and Muslims that has claimed the lives of hundreds. A Boko Haram spokesperson said that as far as he knew the group was not responsible for the attack. “It wasn’t us, at least according to what I have been told,” he told Bikyamasr.com on Saturday afternoon. Become an Oyibos OnLine fan on Facebook |
Mar182012