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Massacre in Nigeria

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Details about a massacre outside the Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday are still sketchy. Authorities arrested dozens of Muslim men after the attacks. The BBC’s Komla Dumor visited one of the villages where the massacres took place and speaks with one of the survivors.

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DAVID BARON: I’m David Baron, this is The World. Hundreds of women marched in protest through the Nigerian city of Jos today. The march was in response to Sunday’s massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in villages near the city. One protester told reporters that Nigeria’s government has to do more to protect its people.

PROTESTOR: They should beef up security in troubled areas so that we would be able to know that people that go to bed will wake up the next day and life will continue.

DAVID BARON: Details about Sunday’s massacre are still sketchy, but authorities arrested dozens of Muslim men after the attacks, the victims were Christian. The BBC’s Komla Dumor visited one of the villages where the latest killings took place. He met a survivor named Pepi who agreed to tell his story. They spoke in the bedroom of Pepi’s ruined house, where he and his wife were sleeping when the attack began. And we should warn that his story is disturbing.

PEPI: I heard the gunshots, I tell my wife we should go into the toilet. So when we run in, then they break the window.

KOMLA DUMOR: And all this time you’re hearing those gunshots?

PEPI: Yes. [MAKES GUNSHOT SOUNDS] Like that.

KOMLA DUMOR: [OVERLAPPING] What could you hear going on outside while this was happening?

PEPI: Yeah. So they are speaking language, [INDISCERNIBLE] language, [SOUNDS LIKE: Housa], Arab language like this.

KOMLA DUMOR: [OVERLAPPING] Do you know what they were saying?

PEPI: [OVERLAPPING] And English. I didn’t know what they were saying, but the, what I heard is, “They’re inside, they’re inside, putting fire, putting fire.” Then would shift from here, to this place. [BG NOISE]

KOMLA DUMOR: We’re now inside. This used to be you living room.

PEPI: Yeah.

KOMLA DUMOR: This used to be–

PEPI: [OVERLAPPING] This is my living room.

KOMLA DUMOR: Yeah.

PEPI: They want to break the door, the back door there.

KOMLA DUMOR: They were trying to get into the house.

PEPI: To get into the house because they said the [SOUNDS: arna] is inside.

KOMLA DUMOR: What does arna mean?

PEPI: Arna that’s a person that have no religion. So, [INDISCERNIBLE].

KOMLA DUMOR: [OVERLAPPING] The arna’s inside the house?

PEPI: Yes, they are inside the house. So, then I tell my wife, “You should keep quiet.” Then my baby started crying. The noise of the fire led them, they didn’t hear any noise. Then they bring something, then they hit the door, then they hit the door. We just keep quite.

KOMLA DUMOR: [OVERLAPPING] Get into the house.

PEPI: [OVERLAPPING] To get into, because they said you should get into the house and kill the arna, the arna. So I kept quiet.

KOMLA DUMOR: You could hear your neighbors screaming?

PEPI: Screaming, real screaming babies and the mothers all crying, shouting. Then later I hear no more.

KOMLA DUMOR: Why do you think they didn’t get into the house? Why didn’t they kill you?

PEPI: I think it’s just, it’s just god’s wish. That day god says it’s not my own time to kill, they will not kill me.

KOMLA DUMOR: Tell us what you saw when you finally came out into the village?

PEPI: When I came out, then the first thing I did, I went to my neighbor’s house. I saw all the wives, they kill them. Cut, cut their bodies, put fire on them and the babies. Small, small babies over three months, two months. They kill all the children, almost four children there. They kill them with the murders, put fire on them. Then I run into the village, all these all over caught in, it wouldn’t, there’s a one of my in-laws wife, they cut the head and [INDISCERNIBLE] with the baby. They cut the skull here, like this, remove. [INDISCERNIBLE]

KOMLA DUMOR: Do you feel safe now, Pepi?

PEPI: By god grace I’m safe now, by god grace.

KOMLA DUMOR: Are you worried that there could be another attack?

PEPI: I will not worry because the life is only once, and god is with us. Everything is in the hand of god. Yes.

DAVID BARON: That was a survivor of Sunday’s massacre in Central Nigeria speaking to the BBC’s Komla Dumor.

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