At least 100 people were killed when some gunmen attacked three villages in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State in the early hours of Saturday.
Our correspondent gathered that the attackers invaded the three villages of Ugwar Sankwai, Ungwar Gata and Chenshyi on Friday night when the villagers were fast asleep.
According to eye witnesses, the gunmen, numbering over 40, razed houses and gunned down residents who tried to escape.
One of the residents of Chenshyi, Nuhu Moses, who managed to escape from the scene of the attack, said no fewer than 50 people were killed in his village.
He said: “The attackers were more than 40 and were armed with dangerous knives, guns and other sophisticated weapons. Over 50 people were killed in our village alone and there is no house standing.
All the houses were burnt by the attackers while people who attempted, to run were gunned down. I was just lucky to have escaped, but our pastor’s wife and kids were among the people that were butchered.”
Also, a resident of Ungwar Sankwai, Jonathan Bako, described his escape as a miracle.
The Kaduna Command of the Nigeria Police Force confirmed the incident.
Its spokesman, Mr. Aminu Lawan, said a police men had been deployed in the area while the command had started investigating the attack.
Vice-Chairman of the council, Daniel Anyip, confirmed that several houses were set ablaze by the attackers.
He added that children and women were not spared in the attack.
“From our records, in all the three villages attacked, only five houses are standing, while people killed are about 100. These are villages that housed a lot of people but they are now homeless,” he added.
Meanwhile, the state Governor, Mukhtar Yero, through his spokesman, Mr. Ahmed Maiyaki, has condemned the attack, describing it as “ungodly and barbaric.”
Yero, who vowed to bring the perpetrators to book, ordered a full-scale investigation into the attack.
The governor condoled with the victims of the attacks and assured them of his administration’s commitment to protecting the lives and property of the people of the state.
The governor also appealed to the attacked communities to remain calm and law-abiding as security operatives were already on top of the situation.
A Southern Kaduna group, Centrum Initiative for Development and Rights Advocacy, also condemned the attack and asked why the attackers operated for several hours unchallenged.
CEDRA’s spokesman, Dr. John Danfulani, said the attack was nothing but a genocide and an extinction of the people of the southern part of the state.
He noted that the state government and its agents were just politics with the insecurity in the area and warned that the patience of the people of the area was fast running out.
Danfulani said, “We condemn in strong terms the killings that took place in Ungwan Gata, Me-Sankwai and Tekum villages by suspected Fulani herdsmen.
“The killings in three villages continued to early hours of Saturday and at the end, over 100 innocent Southern Kaduna people were butchered and killed by the assailants with impunity. It is a gradual genocide and an extinction.
“It is clear that the Kaduna State government and their agents are only playing politics with the insecurity ravaging the southern Kaduna region. We will also not shy away from stating the obvious, that the Kaduna state government has failed and is only playing double standard.”
On Friday, about 350 people lost their lives in the clash between Boko Haram insurgents and the Special Forces in Maimalari, Maiduguri, Borno State.
The insurgents had attacked the 21 Armoured Brigade of the Nigerian Army in the wee hours of Friday