“Despite Ongoing Terror Alerts, Nigerian Authorities Stand By as 35 Plateau Residents are Slain,” by Masara Kim, Truth Nigeria, July 11, 2023:

JOS—Indigenous Christian farmers in Plateau State, Nigeria, face a grim choice: stay home and starve, or risk farming and dying, amidst a lush forest savannah.

Just yesterday, two women were shot dead while returning from their farm 30 miles southwest of Jos, in central Nigeria’s Plateau State. The tragic incident happened shortly before sunset on July 10. This attack in the eastern part of Riyom county happened only hours after the burial of eight residents, who were killed the previous day, in a nearby village just 5 miles away.

These victims are the latest casualties in a string of assaults on local Christian villages that have claimed at least 35 lives since Truth Nigeria issued an early warning of impending attacks in the region on July 4. Within hours of the alert being published, one person was killed in western Riyom County, and in the following days, more victims fell in the surrounding areas. These accounts were reported to Truth Nigeria by witnesses of the attacks.

The attacks are attributed to Islamic terrorists, members of the Fulani ethnicity. The violence has been ongoing in the region since May 16, taking the lives of over 350 residents, according to international monitoring group Intersociety.

The Fulani, one of Africa’s largest tribes, known for their cattle-herding skills, claim up to 10 million members in Nigeria. A radicalized faction of the Fulani people has been accused of killing three times more Christians than the insurgency known as Boko Haram in recent years. According to Intersociety, this year alone, Fulani militants have jointly killed more than 2,500 Nigerian Christians, including at least 500 in Plateau State.

The reason for the continual assaults? The attacks in Mangu are primarily aimed at land seizure and ethnic displacements, says Plateau State legislator Bala Fwanje, who also accuses the military of indifference. “More than 50 of our communities in Mangu County have been displaced in the past two months. Our people can no longer go to their farms or homes, and yet nothing is being done,” he told Truth Nigeria.

Warnings of impending attacks have largely been ignored by Operation Safe Haven, a sizable military task force stationed throughout the state.

The two women slain on July 10 were in their mid-40s, according to local community leader and attorney, Dalyop Solomon. They were gunned down by terrorists hiding behind tall trees, near their village of Rim, Solomon said.