Some children displaced in the Irigwe chiefdom attacks waiting to collect relief items.
By Marie-Therese Nanlong
Jos – Gastro Barry, Chairman Relief and Intervention Committee in Irigwe chiefdom says 700 people have been killed in the community.
Irigwe chiefdom has been severally attacked by armed men and arsonists in the past few weeks.
Barry said the crises in Irigwe Chiefdom, Bassa local government area of Plateau State which started since 2001 has taken an entirely different dimension.
It would be recalled that Jebbu Miango village in Irigwe chiefdom was sacked last week by armed men who killed some residents, mowed grown crops and burnt property.
Barry and other community leaders spoke when the President of Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation, Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam, visited the Chiefdom to present relief materials to internally displaced persons.
Barry said, “as I am talking to you now, about 39 communities have been displaced, over 700 have been killed with 55 people injured and hospitalized. The number of crop farms destroyed are close to 3,000. Over the last few days, the Fulani herdsmen have been grazing their cattle freely on crops that were cultivated.”
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“The number of residential rooms, exclusive of food barns, kitchens and stores destroyed are over 3,000. A lot of displaced persons are taking refuge in Miango and in the Kwall district of the chiefdom. A few have moved to Jos and Bukuru. Because this thing happened so suddenly, they could not move out foodstuffs, clothing so families are struggling to feed.”
“Some people sustained gunshot injuries and are in hospitals, bills need to be settled, they need medical attention. Issue of accommodation is also a challenge. We have not received any support from the government. We pleaded with the clinics to bear with us.”
However, Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam who led other officials of the Foundation to visit the people lamented the situation, saying, “What happened in Irigwe land moved our hearts. Although we do peace work in this local government area, sometimes it is difficult to bring people to talk and then when it is an hour of need and you cannot provide the kind of help that people want.
“We reflected through that and said we should bring some support. There are many people that are displaced from their homes, they have no place to sleep, no food to eat, we thought we should find support to make them have food to eat while we try to work with all the necessary security agencies to bring the situation under normalcy.
We brought rice, beans, maize, people gave through our Foundation, all the money didn’t come from our coffers. We call on other well-meaning Nigerians, we don’t need to wait for people outside to come and help us. We need to also give.
“When we give support, we give to all sides, I want to call on even Muslims to give so that we can support all of these people who have been rendered homeless. Our good act of mercy should not be defined by religion, I give this challenge to all Christians and Muslims to help.
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“As of Thursday evening, we have 29,804 Irigwes that have been rendered homeless. That is almost 30,000, there are about 55 people injured and 70 people that have been killed.”
Para-Mallam who noted “Government could have done more to stop this violence” however appealed to the people to forgive those who have hurt them and give no thought for revenge, stressing, “peace building does not support injustice but I plead with you not to take laws into your hands, don’t go for revenge. God is not a fool.”
The Brra Nggwe Rigwe, (Paramount Chief of the Irigwe people) Rev. Ronku Aka rtd lamented his people are being “hunted everywhere like rats” but assured there will be no reprisal because, “we have no power to fight anyone but we believe God will avenge us and we will rise again as a people.”
Meanwhile, Bassa local government Chairman, Chindo Girga who also visited the people said, “as a local government, this affects us, we are doing our best to help the displaced persons with food items. We did all we could to stop this attack but we could not, this happened at the time we did not expect.”
