Gatestone Institute | Raymond Ibrahim | Aug. 25, 2019
Pictured: The small village of Sobane Da, in Mali, where at least 95 Christians were murdered by Fulani gunmen in June. (Image source: United Nations/MINUSMA/Flickr)
Slaughter of Christians
Mali: On June 9, Islamic Fulani gunmen massacred at least 95 Christians — including women and children. During their rampage in a Christian village, they set it ablaze before leaving; several of the slain were burned alive. “About 50 heavily armed men arrived on motorbikes and pickups,” a survivor recalled. “They first surrounded the village and then attacked — anyone who tried to escape was killed…. No one was spared — women, children, elderly people.” Security sources confirmed that the raiders also randomly killed domestic animals in the village. It was “virtually wiped out.”
Burkina Faso: Islamic terrorists slaughtered 29 Christians over the course of two separate raids. The first took place on Sunday, June 9, in the town of Arbinda; 19 Christians were slaughtered. The next day, another ten Christians were murdered in a nearby town. An additional 11,000 Christians fled the region and were left displaced; they feared if they were to remain in their villages they would be next. “There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda],” said a local contact. He added that “It’s proven that they [terrorists] were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are [also] killed. Arbinda had now lost in total no less than 100 people within six months.” These June attacks follow a string of Islamic terror attacks in the West African nation over the preceding six weeks that left at least another 20 Christians dead.
Nigeria: Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed at least 24 Christians in three separate raids. On June 17, the herdsmen slaughtered 13 Christians — three of whom were children, one reportedly only eight years old — in Kaduna and Plateau States. Two churches, more than 200 Christian homes, and crops were also torched to the ground. The same day, in Tarabu State, “Muslim Fulanis riding Bajaj motorcycles” raided another Christian village, where they butchered another 11 Christians. “They burned houses and shot us as we fled,” a “contact” said, according to the report. According to Morning Star News:
“Like Boko Haram, they are inspired by the jihad and caliphate of their Fulani kinsman Usman dan Fodio,” John Eibner, chairman of international management at the Swiss-based CSI, notes on the Website. “The extensive death and destruction caused by Fulani terrorists rarely makes major headlines in the West. But, according to the Global Terrorism Index, ‘In 2018 alone, deaths attributed to Fulani extremists are estimated to be six times greater than the number committed by Boko Haram’…
“Fulani attacks against villages, the destruction of crops, and kidnappings tend to be directed against Christian and traditionalist villagers, with the goal of driving them off their land and occupying it,” Eibner states on the Website (www.nigeria-report.org). “For the Fulani militias, the ideology and rhetoric of dan Fodio’s jihad are used to legitimize land grabbing. The violence of these Muslim Fulani militias tends to be conducted with impunity. The American and British-backed Nigerian Army – the largest in Africa and a major participant in many international peacekeeping missions – is unable or unwilling to confront Fulani militias.”