Despite the peace agreement between the Atyap and the Fulani/Hausa towards solving the challenge of insecurity in Kaduna State, more than eight people have reported killed in Southern Kaduna by alleged Fulani militia attacks on Friday.
Those killed according to reports included a 60-year-old widow, a mother of 6 children and a 56-year-old man in Manyi-Mashin village, Zamandabo ward, in Atyap Chiefdom, Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
The attack took place in the early hours of Friday, 11th September 2020.
The National Publicity Officer, Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, SOKAPU, Luka Binniyat who disclosed this in a statement same Friday said the suspected Fulani militias burnt down almost all the houses in the village, looting and carting away valuables.
According to the statement, though men of Operation Safe Haven promptly responded, the militia fled before their arrival.
Another attack by suspected Fulani militia took place on the 8th of September, 2020 when three Atyap youths from Atakmawei village in Zamandabo Ward in Atyap Chiefdom were ambushed.
The three young farmers were said to have gone to work in their Sugar cane farm about a kilometre from their village when suspected armed herdsmen came from hiding and descended on them with daggers and machetes.
Anthony Magaji, 25, a final year HND student with Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic, Zaria, was hacked down, axing his neck and head with macabre wounds which killed him instantly.
Isaac Thomas, 24, also an OND student of the same school, managed to escape with life-threatening injuries and is now under intensive care in a hospital, while the third escaped with less injury.
The statement from Southern Kaduna Group went further to say: “Meanwhile, we have received complains of farmers in Gora axis of Atyap Chiefdom, who say that Fulani men occasionally sneak into their farms and destroy large swaths of growing food crops, thus leaving them with a bleak prospect of hunger in the near future.
“All these gory development is taking place after a much-publicized peace deal was reached between natives of Atyap Chiefdom on one side and their long time settled Hausa and Fulani representatives on 23rd August 2020 in Unguwan Wakili, close to Zangon Kataf town.”
It added that on the 8th of September, 2020, an attack was launched again by Fulani militias at Kitsarapang village in Kizachi Chiwo of Kizachi community, Tsam Chiefdom in Kauru local government area, stressing that the attack claimed the life of Emmanuel David Yohanna, 13, leaving two persons grievously with gunshots namely Sunday Zango Stephen, 48 and Zakka John, 23 who are now receiving treatment at a hospital in Jos.
