Feature: Corpses litter Nigerian village attacked by gunmen

by Olatunji Saliu

KADUNA, Nigeria, May 9 (Xinhua) -- At least two decomposed corpses were found in surrounding bushes on Tuesday as a team of local residents combed Nigeria's northwestern village of Gwaska, which was attacked by gunmen last weekend.

Dozens of bullet shells and burned bicycles were also found in the thick bushes, around the market square, and inside the main village.

Gwaska is a populated village, located in Birnin-Gwari, an area frequently attacked by gunmen in Nigeria's northern state of Kaduna.

It is 291 kilometers away from the Kaduna city center. It has no road, no school, no fence, no functional health facility, no source of water supply. Most of its dwellers are farmers who go to source for water in other villages to do their farming work, drink, cook, and bath.

Last Saturday, ahead of the attack which left the village with sorrow, tears, and blood, a group of gunmen had sent word that they were coming to attack the villagers.

Sheriff Abdullahi (not real name), a youth leader in the village, said he and the village chiefs headed to a security post mounted in Birnin-Gwari town, less than 15 kilometers to the village, to call for security support.

"After receiving the threat message, some of our people working on their farm had spotted some of the gunmen hiding in the bush," said Abdullahi, whose father was among 16 people killed in a similar attack on Gwaska two years ago.

According to the youth leader and other villagers, a few security personnel came around but withdrew and headed back to their post after speaking to the villagers for less than an hour.

"Then, few minutes after the Muslim prayer at 4 p.m. local time, the gunmen struck and wreaked havoc on our village," Abdullahi told Xinhua in the local Hausa language mainly spoken in northern Nigeria and some African countries.

The attackers were believed to have entered the village from the northwestern state of Zamfara, a neighboring state to Kaduna.

The gunmen, over 100 in number, came in at least 50 motorcycles. They rode in twos, while some were three on a motorbike.

Mostly children were killed during the four-hour attack. As of Tuesday, the death toll had risen to 73.

Although a mass burial was held on Monday for at least 58 bodies earlier recovered after the attack, 13 more bodies were found littering the bushes between late Monday and early Tuesday, residents said.

A Xinhua crew on an on-the-spot reporting of the incident found two more bodies in a thick bush, together with a local security group in the village, on Tuesday.

"This is the body of Abu, my brother-in-law. We were together when the attackers struck. I ran toward a different direction for safety while he ran toward this bush. I didn't know he was pursued to the bush and killed here by the gunmen," teary-eyed Malik Hassan (also not real name) told Xinhua has he dug a shallow grave to bury his deceased in-law in the bush.

Local residents scampered for safety as the gunmen entered the village on Saturday evening, shooting indiscriminately and burning down the houses, shops, grain stores and bicycles.

Some of the buildings were still burning when Xinhua visited the village.

Many of the victims were macheted or gunned down, some burned alive and others tied to the back of the gunmen's motorcycles while driven along the path to the village's exit until they died.

"We cannot take his body out of here because, as you can see, it is dismembered," Hassan said, pointing at the already swollen body of Abu.

The village's youth leader said more people are still missing, following the attack last Saturday evening.

During Monday's mass burial of the victims, relatives were buried together, with some of the graves having up to six bodies.

A local team formed by the villagers are still helping to comb the surrounding bushes for more bodies.

The village head has relocated most of the people to a neighboring place called Doka until the government provides adequate security for them.

Up till now, there is no security presence in the village despite the mass killing of the dwellers.

In a move to track down the killers, the local police in Kaduna said combatant policemen will be assigned to comb Birnin-Gwari.

On Monday, Governor Nasir El-Rufai said the establishment of a permanent Battalion of the Nigerian Army in the Birnin-Gwari general area had been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Nigeria's police chief Ibrahim Idris has also announced the creation of a Birnin-Gwari Police Area Command and two new divisional police headquarters as a means of beefing up security in the area.

Police spokesperson Mukhtar Aliyu told reporters in Kaduna city that no arrest has been made so far, but that the effort to arrest the killers has been intensified. (Note: Pseudonyms are used in the report to protect the identity of villagers.) Enditem