*’Terrorist Jihadists Wrote Letter To Come Preach Shariah To Us, When Noone Attended Event, They Returned To Take Lives’
*Red Cross Says 162 Killed, Amnesty International Cites ‘Security Failure’
Umar Bio Salihu, the traditional ruler of Woro village in Kwara State, where jihadists massacred residents on Tuesday, has recounted a night of terror during which the attackers killed two of his sons and kidnapped his wife and three daughters.
President Bola Tinubu has condemned the “beastly attack,” deployed an army battalion to the troubled region, and blamed the Islamist extremist Boko Haram movement – though the name is often used generically for jihadist groups in Nigeria.
Salihu, 53, who was in Woro, a small, Muslim-majority village, said that at about 5pm on Tuesday the gunmen “just came in and started shooting.”
Salihu said the jihadists had sent a letter saying they were coming to the village to preach, and went on the rampage when no one attended.
He told Agence France-Presse:“All those shops that are within the road, they burnt them … Some people have been burned inside their houses.
“They killed two of (my sons) standing at the front of my house. They took away my second wife with some three (daughters). They are with them presently in the bush.”
Salihu survived by hiding in a house, then fled to the neighbouring town of Kaiama, where he has a home, after the attackers left.
The attack lasted until 3am, he said. “When the day breaks, the corpses we see, it’s too much,” he said.
Woro, a village of several thousand people, sits near a forest region known as a hideout for jihadist fighters and armed gangs.
Footage broadcast by local news stations after the attacks on Woro and the neighbouring village of Nuku showed bodies lying in blood on the ground, some with their hands tied, and burning houses.
Details are still emerging from the attack, Nigeria’s deadliest so far this year.
According to the Red Cross, the death toll stands at 162 people, and the search for bodies is ongoing.
Residents separately told Reuters that the attackers had long preached in the village, urging locals to abandon the Nigerian state and adopt Shariah rule.
Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman Abdulrazaq, who paid a visit to the communities on Wednesday night, told journalists that the terrorists massacred the villagers for refusing to accept their extremist Islamist ideology.
Amnesty International’s Nigeria office has described the attacks on both villages as “a stunning security failure.”
The attacks mark the latest in a series of repeated and widespread acts of violence by jihadists and other armed groups in Nigeria.
The country is experiencing a jihadist insurgency in the North-East and North-West, as well as a surge in looting and kidnapping for ransom by armed groups known as “bandits” in the North-West and North-Central regions.
Experts say that Kwara is fast becoming a new frontier for armed groups seeking to expand in Africa’s most populous country.
A researcher at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, James Barnett, told Associated Press(AP) that armed groups have been going farther afield because they are finding a lot of competition from rival groups in the areas where they traditionally operated.
The armed groups in Nigeria include at least two affiliated with Islamic State (IS): an offshoot of Boko Haram known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province (ISWAP), known locally as Lakurawa.
The military has in the past said the Lakurawa has its roots in neighbouring Niger Republic and that it became more active in Nigeria’s border communities after a 2023 military coup in the Francophone nation.
Kwara borders Niger State, which is targeted increasingly by armed groups and is a hotspot where ISWAP and other armed groups have stepped up village attacks and mass kidnappings.
Insecurity in Nigeria has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since the US President Donald Trump alleged that there was a “genocide” against Christians in the country.
The claim has been rejected by the Nigerian government, who say the country’s security crises claim the lives of Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Salihu.
