NOTE: This report contains descriptions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.
IN Zike, 18 children were among the 54 victims killed, while another seven lost their lives in Hurti and its surrounding villages. Among the casualties of the onslaught on these Plateau communities were dozens of women. Despite government claim that the violence was communal clashes, community leaders and victims insist there was no provocation and that the attacks were meant to instil fear and intimidation.
It was going to be a night of bloodletting, but Moses Asabe sensed no danger. Just hours after she alongside her four children, her husband and her mother-in-law went to bed, gun-wielding men launched an attack on their community, Zikke.
It started with sporadic gunshots into the air, to firing directly at the residents scampering to find refuge in the forest or hills. Those who hid in their houses were ransacked, killed and set on fire.
When the attackers reached their home, her first son Jerry, 14, was dragged out from the living room after the door was broken through and killed at the doorstep. The other two, Jacob, 3, and James, 10, who had hidden in their room, were thrown into fire and burnt alive.
Asabe and her husband knew their only hope was to remain calm and hide with their youngest daughter and mother-in-law. The husband had locked the women in a room and hidden himself under the ceiling, but it wasn’t enough to save them. Their entire house was set ablaze, and they were forced to endure the flames until the assailants left. It took hours before help came their way.
Although she and her daughter survived, they suffered a severe burn, alongside her mother-in-law. “My husband was burnt beyond recognition. He didn’t survive it. He died in the hospital.”
The attack was the first in Zike. Asabe and a number of villagers who spoke with The ICIR, said they were caught off guard. They are a helpless and unarmed group, who stood no chance against the gun-blazing men that invaded their village. The locals said the attackers came with sophisticated arms and used night vision gadgets to carry out their mission, The ICIR could not independently verify this claim.
When The ICIR visited Asabe, she lay quietly on a worn rubber mat spread on the floor, body barely shifting except when she raised herself, slowly to speak. Her entire right hand, from the shoulder down to her wrist, bore scars and raw patches that reflected the extent of the fire burn on her body. Her one-year-old daughter slept close to her. She bore the same injury as that of her mum. Her leg was also dotted with burns.
Asabe is not alone. Other families in the village shared similar experiences. Children killed in their sleep, fathers and mothers killed while shielding their families and homes reduced to ashes.
That was the night twenty-year-old Mwa Jerry’s mother died. About two hours into their sleep, the family was jolted by the sound of gunshots. At first, Jerry thought the attack was from neighbouring towns, but the gunshot later grew louder and closer to their house. Jerry’s household, including his mother, joined other residents to flee their houses and hide in the bush.
His mother, Asi, who had been battling tuberculosis, struggled to keep up. She was not feeling too well and had to hide somewhere separately from the rest of the family a little farther away. But the cough later gave her away; Asi was killed while her son grieved in silence.
“They killed her on the spot. We were watching from our hiding place, and we couldn’t do anything to help. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced,” Jerry said.
“It has been devastating. I’m the last born, and she meant everything to me. Her death left a hole in our lives, especially for me. I miss her every single day,” Jerry said.
Zike attack
It was on Sunday night, April 13, when many residents in the Zike community had gone to bed. But not long after, the villagers began to flee for their lives. The ICIR gathered that while the community was just suffering its first attacks from the gunmen suspected to be ‘Fulani’, several of the surrounding villages had been targeted and attacked in the past. One of such attacks led to the setting up of a small camp of a military base in a village, not so far from Zike.
There were about five other checkpoints leading into the town from Jos. However, as is common with such attacks, the assailants bypassed security by heading through surrounding bushes and hills and later connecting the same way. Locals said the attackers were heavily armed and communicated in Fulfulde.
During the attack, the assailants killed 51 people and scared away other residents with sporadic and indiscriminate shooting. Six persons were injured and at least 88 houses were burnt or destroyed, The ICIR gathered from multiple accounts.
Three more victims later died in the hospital from gunshot wounds and burns.
The attackers, who started right behind the Kimakpa district head’s house, followed a single path leading into the village. The assailants were said to have retreated into the bush at the far end of the community, an area surrounded by hills and dense vegetation.
It was near this same location that the community conducted a mass burial for 51 victims. The village shares a boundary with Kamaru Ward in Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Zike is surrounded by villages such as Pankeh, Zonhu, Mangu-Reni, and Ngbranvie to the northeast and west. Some of the villages have over the years endured attacks from gunmen.
The village is encircled by tall hills and vast forested areas, situated about 24 kilometres from Jos. Zike is home to more than 2,500 people, with over 700 households, the population being predominantly Christians.
“This particular incident stands out because of the devastating number of lives lost. No single attack in our history has claimed as many as 54 lives. The only event close to this tragedy was in 2018, when 27 people died, and another series of coordinated attacks on 11 villages, which claimed 76 lives in total,” the District Head of Kimakpa Luka Miri said.
Women, Children hit hard
Adamu Dogara still remembers the night clearly. He’s still haunted by the pain that has refused to leave. If grief had an address, it might be his household, where he lost two of his sons, a 4-year-old Reuben and 9-years-old Dogara.
On the night of the assault, the two were asleep alongside their parents and siblings when their mother shook them awake. But they stood a slim chance of fleeing together alive. The gunmen had already surrounded their house.
While trying to sneak out of the building, the gunmen caught the first son and slaughtered him. The eldest child was also hacked with a machete in the back, before being slaughtered.
Since that night, life has been a daily torture for Dogara.
“It was a terrible night for us in this village. The two sons were buried alongside others at the mass burial site,” he said.
The children in Zike still live with the mental torture of losing their parents to the attacks. Some of them displaced and now wonder how they can go on living their life.
For instance, it was during the night, while Kaja Daniel Mwa lost her father during the attack. His father had gone out to survey the area when he was gunned down. He and other members of the family, including his three siblings were huddled in one of the rooms by their mother.
“My dad went outside after hearing the gunshots, but sadly, he was killed. I’m still trying to understand and accept what happened. It’s been really hard to lose him at this point of our lives,” he said.
The Adamus are among the 18 children (aged 0-17) killed in Zike during the attack, according to the data obtained from the community leaders. Out of this nine were under 10, while the remaining were under 18. The children were either shot dead, slaughtered or burnt alive. Meanwhile, out of the 54 deaths recorded, 20 were females.
‘Not communal, religious clashes. Our attackers are known’
When Luka Miri, District Head of Kimakpa, sat outside his house, attending to sympathisers, his face told the story long before he opened his mouth. He had also been busy telling the story of Zike, which is one of the many villages under his care.
Although he, alongside locals, said this is the first time the community would be attacked by gunmen, he stressed that the it wasn’t the first time Kimakpa had experienced such. However, it was the worst Miri had ever seen in a lifetime of watching his people bury their dead after similar invasions.
“This recent attack is not the first of its kind. It has occurred repeatedly and countless times over the years. However, this particular incident stands out because of the devastating number of lives lost. No single attack in our history has claimed as many as 54 lives,” Miri said.
Contrary to being dubbed by the presidency as community clash, Miri explained that the attack was unprovoked and was never a communal clash.
Bokkos: ‘They slaughtered them like cows’
A 68-year-old Malo Yohanna had just finished bathing in the river in Hurti on April 2 and was preparing to head to the market square. It was a routine day for him in a place where life had to go on despite the continued threat of violence in the area.
“We heard gunshots around 12pm,” he recalled, adding, “But that’s common here. Sometimes we wait, and later we hear what happened. So, we didn’t panic.
“But my son called someone at Daffo asking what the gunshots were for and he told him that gunmen wanted to attack Malul, a community in Daffo but security were able to repel the attack,” he added.
But by 3 p.m. on the same day, Yohanna knew something was wrong. There were relentless gunshots. He was still on the mountain, just beside the river he took his bath, when his son came on bike to inform him about the attack on his village. The attackers, whom he said spoke Fulfulde, had come on bike in a group of three to attack his village, Hurti.
“I started running without even shoes, they came in their numbers on bikes three on one bike with black clothes. My wife was killed in the incident while running for her life. She was shot and they still used a machete to cut her head,” he said.
For over an hour, the attackers were conducting a house-to-house search for those in hiding. On that day, Yohanna said he lost two of his nephews who were in his care. The children, according to him, were killed in front of his house. “My two younger brother’s children who could not run were slaughtered like cows and burnt.”
This was the same story by many people in Hurti who spoke with The ICIR. Survivors narrated how the attackers stormed the village in a coordinated force, riding on motorcycles. Some of them covered their faces while others did not mind. They wielded both guns and machetes.
The assault, residents said, lasted for nearly two hours, during which homes and farm produce were set ablaze, and anyone who couldn’t escape was either gunned down or butchered. Among them were children and elderly people who couldn’t flee.
A coordinated attack
Like Zike, Hurti, a community in Manguna , had been spared of attacks from gunmen over the years. The community was relatively peaceful compared to other neighbouring villages. Hurti is only a few metres away from villages plagued by insecurity.
The ICIR gathered that the community had never experienced any attacks before.
However, on the afternoon of Friday, April 2, when most residents were in the farm, mining site and others gearing up to go to the evening market, the gun wielding men surrounded Hurti and the neighbouring villages. They came in over 20 bicycles. They rode in threes – a rider and two others facing different directions, shooting indiscriminately at residents.
During the attacks, 43 were killed including children, hundreds displaced and many houses burnt.
Locals said the casualties could have been lower but the gunmen laid siege in other villages. As the residents fled from Tala Hurti, the largest village in Manguna district, they were ambushed in the neighbouring villages like Doi, Radish, Waya, Tukuwai, as their other gunmen lay in wait for them.
Before the 2023 incident, Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) had only recorded a few isolated cases of violent attacks. However, the attacks became more frequent following a crisis that led to the mass displacement of Fulani inhabitants from neighbouring Mangu, it was gathered.
The conflict in Mangu reportedly began when tensions escalated between the indigenous Mwaghavul people and the Fulani, who are often regarded as settlers in the area. While the Mwaghavul people grow Irish potato, maize and other crops, the Fulani, who are pastoralists, carry on grazing.
For years, they lived like this, ignoring a few cases of open grazing, kidnapping and theft, until a severe crisis broke out between the two, which consequently led to hundreds of casualties on both sides. The crisis was said to have started over a piece of land in Murish, a community in Mangu.
“And the issue of grazing is settled by either taking the invader to the police station or the traditional council where the matter is resolved. If they are to pay a fine, of course they used to pay it,” said a resident of Bokkos town.
Residents of Bokkos said the 2023 incident triggered an influx of Fulani from Mangu into their communities around April that year. Although thousands of Fulani already lived in Mangu, the population nearly doubled over the past two years.
Due to the limited number of Fulani and their cattle in Mangu and the growing population of the tribe in Bokkos, it was gathered that cattle rustlers visit from Mangu often to steal cattle in Bokkos. Often when this happened the herders followed the rustlers but upon returning, regardless of whether they recovered their cattle, they allegedly attacked villages in Bokkos.
When The ICIR spoke with the residents and the head of the villages on what could have triggered the recent attacks, they had no idea. Although they mentioned their attackers were Fulani speaking men and are their neighbours whom they recognised, they explained that they had no prior issues with them.
This, the Fulani, have continuously dismissed. The chairman of the Fulani Association, Garba Abdullahi, dismissed the allegation that Fulani carried out the attacks on the affected communities, describing it as “a mere fabrication.”
Similarly, the chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) in Bassa LGA, Ya’u Idris, told the media that at least 78 cattle were poisoned, resulting in the deaths of 36. According to him, the animals consumed poisoned garden eggs while grazing.
The incident occurred just days after the deadly attack on Zike community, where over 52 people were killed.
Killings in Plateau longstanding issue
The killings in Plateau State have persisted over the years, primarily fuelled by unidentified armed groups and ethnic militias. The civilians often bore the brunt of the violence. These attacks were frequently spontaneous and highly targeted, according to data by ACLED.
Between 2000 to April 2025, at least 8000 people have been killed either by state or non state actors, according to our analysis.
The most devastating years were 2010, with 1,146 deaths, and 2004, with 930 deaths. In addition to identity-driven violence, religious riots have also been a major cause, resulting in 1,662 fatalities. The most lethal religious riot occurred in 2001, claiming 1,022 lives, followed by 631 deaths in 2008.
Bassa and Bokkos particularly have been impacted by the recurrent violence, recording substantial numbers of fatalities. The primary causes of killings in these areas are identity militia attacks targeting civilians and religious riots.
ACLED categorises ‘violence against civilians’ as incidents where organised armed groups deliberately attack unarmed non-combatants. Civilians, by definition, are unarmed and do not partake in political violence.
Both LGAs have witnessed frequent attacks that are often attributed to conflicts between identity groups. According to ACLED, identity militias encompass groups identified as tribal, communal, ethnic, local, clan, religious, and caste militias, as reported by sources.
Traumatised and hunted
When The ICIR visited one of the affected houses in Hurti, Ahwet Simon sat quietly on a faded plastic chair, pressed between his aged mother and other grieving mothers. The eleven-year-old-boy clutched the hem of his oversized shirt as his grandmother occasionally signalled him to continue narrating his ordeal.
Simon has visibly been weighed down by the killing of his father, whom he described as the the sole breadwinner of the entire family. Simon’s hands fidgeted in his lap whenever he described the attackers.
According to him, they spread in groups to carry on the attack that led to the death of his father and 43 others in the town.
“We just came back from the farm then we started hearing gunshots from one area called Doi and it were suspected Fulani from Tala Hurti that were shooting. My father who was in the market square, was killed while running for his life,” he said.
Seven children killed in Hurti
Simon, The ICIR gathered, is one of the many children who have been forced to face these harsh, life-altering realities following the brutal attacks on Hurti, Bokkos. According to data from the community leaders, 43 people have been confirmed dead, including seven children who were killed in Hurti, Bokkos during the attack.
In the wake of the attack, a four-year-old Victor Jambarang and one-year-old Bright Ephriam, both from Doi, were among the youngest casualties.
In the same attack, Ezekiel Tobias, seven, and Justice Mangut, also seven, along with four-year-old Saltifat Mangut, were killed in their own homes in Yukut village.
Others were 15-year-old Isa’ac Michael from Shokot village and Oji Tobias from Tukwai.
Attacks organised to spread fear – Commissioner
Speaking in a recent interview with Punch, the Plateau State Commissioner for Information, Joyce Ramnap, dismissed claims that the recent spate of killings in the state are farmer-herder clashes.
She described the attacks as organised, targeted attacks designed to instil fear, depopulate communities, and cripple livelihoods.
Ramnap stated that the brutal killings, including the recent massacre of children in Bassa were not spontaneous disputes but premeditated acts of terror aimed at destabilising communities, particularly during the farming season.
“When people say it’s a farmer-herder clash, the question is: which farmers and which herders are clashing? Where is this clash taking place? What we’re witnessing are coordinated attacks on entire communities. In such attacks, are all the victims farmers? Certainly not! When a community is invaded and people are indiscriminately killed, how can anyone say it’s a clash between farmers and herders?” she said.
Our attackers are known, not ghosts – Governor Muftwang
Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, during his condolence visit to the affected communities, admitted that the government failed in its responsibility to protect a community recently devastated by a deadly attack.
He also stressed that the perpetrators are not invisible or unknown, adding that they are known individuals being shielded by collaborators.
He also tasked the youths to stay vigilant and defend themselves against invaders.
“We are more determined than ever to ensure that no more innocent blood is shed on the Plateau. There’s no reason for anyone to take the law into their hands. While we continue to invest in security, communities must also rise to defend themselves. We can no longer afford to sleep while the enemy strikes at night,” he warned.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M