Nigéria e o terror dos massacres étnicos

Um artigo para ler: Nigeria's deadly ethnic dispute
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Residents of Nigerian village live in fear of renewed massacres

A thick, pale scar cuts across Jessica Chuwang’s cheek. It slices through a blood-encrusted ear and runs deep down her neck. Jet black eyes, full of fear, dart from her father back to the strangers gathered outside the door of the small tin-roofed home.
“She is very nervous, we all are — we fear they will be back anytime,” her father, Pam Chuwang, tells The Times. “People are receiving text messages saying they are coming back to finish the job.”
This Nigerian village, on the outskirts of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, lies on the fault line between Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north and Christian south.
This month it bore the brunt of one of the most brutal attacks the region has witnessed. In an area where thousands have died over the past decade in violence pitching rival Fulani Muslims and Christian Beroms against each other, its ferocity shocked the nation and has ignited fears that ancient disputes over land and cattle are entering a new, bloodier dimension.
On March 7 armed Muslims, some reportedly in army uniforms, entered the village at about 3am. As the shooting began panicked villagers fled for their lives, only to be hacked to death by gangs armed with knives and machetes who were lying in wait. Some even used nets to catch their victims before hacking them to death.
Jessica’s sister, Jostina, 6, was killed by a machete blow that sliced off the top of her head. Her mother, Victoria, is alive, but badly wounded. She is still in hospital.
“I found them lying on the ground together over there,” said Mr Chuwang, a farmer, 42, pointing to a path leading from the modest mud-brick home to the edge of the village. “Jessica looked dead, too, but when I picked her up I could hear her breathing. We took her and her mother to hospital.” Estimates of the number killed vary enormously but the villagers insist that it is about 500 — more than double official figures. Two other villages nearby were also attacked but the worst of the violence and the highest death toll took place in Dogon Na Hauwa.
Home to about 2,000 people, the village bears the scars of the attack. Many of the houses are burnt, the tin roofs caved in over charred beams. The carbonised wrecks of cars and motorbikes litter the dusty lanes where hens and goats scavenge in the dirt. In many places the sandy earth is stained dark by human blood. The trunks of the largest trees are covered black with charcoal. They were set ablaze with the husks of harvested corn to force children and adults hiding in the branches to fall to their deaths.
People have returned but no one is working. Instead, they sit around in small groups comparing notes on the attack and the latest rumours. At least 100 Muslim families who lived among the Christians left before the attack. They have yet to return.
“They were warned the attack was coming,” said Daniel Jik, assistant village headman, who lost two children and eight grandchildren in the attack. He pointed to the mass grave where they lay together. “They even beheaded one woman and we had to bury her body alone because they took the head as a trophy.” Across dusty, sun-baked fields, the village church, now a blackened ruin, still smoulders.
The entire region is in a state of near panic as both sides wait for reprisals. At least 20 people have been killed in attacks since the raids, which were initially believed to be in revenge for an outburst of violence in January that left casualties on both sides.
A strong military presence is now evident but frightened villagers say that a curfew after the January violence failed to prevent this month’s massacre. The tension on both sides is so palpable that local officials fear the army will be unable to prevent a fresh explosion, especially in areas outside the centre of Jos. The federal Government, beset by power struggles, appears incapable of giving the strong leadership needed to avert a full-scale crisis, analysts warn.
“We now live in fear as a result of killings in the city, which makes it difficult for us to move about freely,” Muhammad Sani Mudi, a spokesman for the Hausa community of Muslims, said. “We have lost 23 members to such secret killings in the past two weeks, while 58 others are still missing.”
The Government says that 162 people have been arrested for the killings and has pledged to find out who was behind what was clearly a well-organised and planned attack. Critics say that the Government has failed to act after past attacks and the accused have been freed in order to placate community leaders.
Sanusi Mato, a moderate Islamic politician, said that the Government was not tackling the root cause of the rivalries: poverty. “The problem is not religious, but political and economic, but it is allowed to take on religious and ethnic dimension and that is very dangerous.”
Some Christians say, however, that what is happening in Jos is just the tip of the iceberg. Northern Nigeria has become increasingly Islamised over the past decade with most states adopting Islamic law and many Christians fleeing southwards.
“They now want to extend this into the middle belt, but we will never accept it,” Toma Jang Davou, head of the parliamentary forum of the Berom Christians, said. “They say they will not be happy until they dip the Koran in the waters of the Atlantic.”

por Jonathan Clayton, Dogon Na Hauwa 
via Times


Cf. também:

• Soldiers kill two in Nigeria massacre city
• 500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields
• Pictures: Violence in Jos
• GRAPHIC: conflict zone