VANGUARD
By Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo, Kaduna
THE Southern Kaduna People Union, SOKAPU, yesterday, raised the alarm over deliberate plans to exterminate the ethnic group and called on the United Nations, the African Union, and others to set up a peace enforcement operation base in the area to checkmate incessant attacks and killings in the area.
SOKAPU also appealed to Amnesty International, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and other world bodies to investigate the pogrom, stressing that there was an alleged plan to commit genocide to completely eliminate them from existence. The union which said it no longer has faith in the government and the armed forces, alleged there was a conspiracy of silence even as their kith and kin were killed and their homes destroyed with impunity.
At a briefing in Kaduna, SOKAPU President, Mr. Awemi Dio Maisamari, said they were constrained to address the world on the pressing issue of the security situation affecting their people in Southern Kaduna. He said: “You are all witnesses to the wanton cruelty being visited on our communities by bands of murderous armed herdsmen in the recent past, for which no single arrest has been made.
“Last Sunday, April 16, 2023, the peaceful, farming Runji village (Sankwab) in Atyap land, Zangon Kataf LGA in Southern Kaduna, was invaded by marauding armed herdsmen around 1.00 a.m., in which they carried out horrific acts of murder, arson, and theft. After operating for hours, brave youths of the town, joined by others from neighbouring villages, teamed up and faced the invaders, who then retreated into the night.
