{"id":29509,"date":"2018-07-03T07:59:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T07:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=29509"},"modified":"2018-07-03T07:59:19","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T07:59:19","slug":"nigeria-the-west-must-not-wait-for-a-genocide-to-happen-as-it-did-in-rwanda-marta-petrosillo-acn-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/07\/03\/nigeria-the-west-must-not-wait-for-a-genocide-to-happen-as-it-did-in-rwanda-marta-petrosillo-acn-international\/","title":{"rendered":"NIGERIA: \u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&#8221; Marta Petrosillo &#8211; ACN International"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>NIGERIA<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>\u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&#8221;<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>Attacks by Fulani Herdsmen \u2013 The Bishops of Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt appeal to ACN <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cPlease don\u2019t make the same mistake as was made with the genocide in Rwanda. It happened beneath our noses, but no one stopped it. And we know well how that ended.\u201d These are the words of Bishop William Amove Avenya of the diocese of Gboko, in the majority Christian Benue State. He was speaking to ACN. In saying this, he is only the latest of the bishops of Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt to have raised his voice to denounce what is an increasingly worrying phenomenon \u2013 the attacks by Islamist Fulani Herdsmen on Christians in the region. In the last few days, there have been new attacks in the area of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, killing over 100 people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Fulani Herdsmen have herded their flocks in parts of Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt for centuries and there have always been occasional clashes with local peasant farmers, the majority of whom are Christians today, and whose crops were frequently trampled and even destroyed by their flocks. But whereas in the past these conflicts were generally either tribal in nature or economically driven, today they appear to have become increasingly religion-based in character. According to official data, there have been 492 victims since the beginning of the year in Benue State alone. \u201cThey are criminals and terrorists, but they do not do the same things in the majority Muslim areas\u201d, Bishop Avenya adds. \u201cWe are convinced that what is happening is an ethnic cleansing of Christians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Bishop Peter Iornzuul Adobo of Katsina-Ala diocese (Benue State) and Bishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Lafia diocese (Nassarawa State) believe that there is a \u201cclear agenda of Islamising the Nigerian Middle Belt\u201d, a plan that is making use of the Fulani Herdsmen. \u201cTheir aim is to strike at the Christians\u201d, explains Bishop Audu, \u201cand the government is doing nothing to stop them because president Buhari himself is also a member of the Fulani tribe\u201d. Adding to the suspicions of complicity on the part of the government is not merely the inactivity of the federal police but also the fact that these Fulani Herdsmen are being armed with ever more sophisticated weaponry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cAt one time these pastoralists were armed only with sticks\u201d, Bishop Avenya explains. \u201cBut now they are armed with AK-47 rifles \u2013 expensive weapons that they could not possibly afford. So who is supplying them? And besides, in these areas, there are checkpoints every 2 km. Is it possible that armed men followed by their flocks of cattle could have somehow become invisible?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">On 22 May all the dioceses of Nigeria took part in a protest march, calling on the government to protect the Christians. \u201cOur faithful are being murdered or forced to live as refugees as a result of the violence\u201d, the bishops tell us. \u201cAnd the West continues to view the matter of the Fulani as merely an internal problem. Don\u2019t do as you did in Rwanda; don\u2019t wait for the genocide to happen before intervening!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><\/h5>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Marta Petrosillo &#8211; ACN International<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NIGERIA \u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&#8221; &nbsp; Attacks by Fulani Herdsmen \u2013 The Bishops of Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt appeal to ACN \u201cPlease don\u2019t make the same mistake as was made with the genocide in Rwanda. It happened beneath our noses, but no one stopped it&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NIGERIA: \u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&quot; Marta Petrosillo - ACN International - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2018\/07\/03\/nigeria-the-west-must-not-wait-for-a-genocide-to-happen-as-it-did-in-rwanda-marta-petrosillo-acn-international\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NIGERIA: \u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&quot; Marta Petrosillo - ACN International - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NIGERIA \u201cThe West must not wait for a genocide to happen as it did in Rwanda!&#8221; &nbsp; Attacks by Fulani Herdsmen \u2013 The Bishops of Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt appeal to ACN \u201cPlease don\u2019t make the same mistake as was made with the genocide in Rwanda. 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