Newsie Events:
The attack by Bandits on Nakuna and Wurukuchi communities in Shiroro Local Government Area on Tuesday has left many families devastated as they lost both relatives and homes.
It was particularly tragic for 75 years old Mallam Yahaya Mota Nakuna, who had to watch as the gunmen killed his children one after the other.
Yahaya, who spoke to The Nation through an interpreter, said that they had all left home for the farm on that fateful Tuesday without an inkling of the danger ahead.
He said it was the harvesting period, so they had gone to the farm to harvest their farm produce only for the gunmen to come to them and ask whether they knew where the vigilance men who had operated in the area were staying, but his family told the gunmen that they did not see anyone.
He said: “We did not know their exact mission because when they asked us where the vigilantes that operated in the area stayed, we answered them honestly.
“If we knew what they were on the farm for, we would have taken to our heels when they arrived.
“At least that was what we had been doing to keep safe these past years.”
Yahaya said that he was on the farm with six of his children and four others who came to assist them in harvesting, adding that he was the only one spared among them.
He said that the gunmen tied his hands and made him watch as his children were being killed without any mercy.
Sobbing uncontrollably, Yahaya recounted what transpired between them and the bandits, he said, “After asking us where the vigilantes were, they asked all my children to come out of the farm and marched them into the village.
“They tied their hands to the back. They beheaded one of them and shot the remaining nine in the head one after the other. After killing them, they freed my hands and asked me to go.”
He said that after the gunmen had gone, he looked for a relative in a nearby community to assist him in burying his slain children.
“Only the two of us dug the graves for my children. We spent over five hours digging the graves to bury them because we were just two.
“That Tuesday started well but ended with me losing all my family. Where would I start from? Six children gone at once! How will I survive this?”
Yahaya is currently staying in Zumba community with other residents of the communities affected in the Tuesday attack.
The gunmen attacked Nakuna and Wurukuchi communities on Tuesday at about 11 am. The majority of the people were in the farm and the gunmen attacked them as several bodies were recovered in various farms.
However, while locals are saying that more than 37 people were killed, the Niger State Commissioner of Police, Monday Bala Kuryas, said that only 13 people were killed.
[Culled From TheNation]
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