Residents Cry Out As Soldiers Allegedly Kill Mother Of 5 In Plateau

 

Residents of villages in the Du District in Jos South local government area have raised concern over continuous harassment in the villages, despite security personnel’s assurances that they would not engage in any act of provocation or intimidation of the residents.

Brigadier-General Umar Mohammed  who is the Garrison Commander, 3rd Armoured Division, Maxwell Khobe Cantonment and Commander, Search and Rescue Operations for the missing Major-General Idris Alkali (rtd), had asked the people who had deserted their homes for fear of molestation and arrest not to entertain any fears, assuring that “We are professional army. We have our rules of engagement and we also follow international best practices.”

The situation however, portrays  the opposite as residents cried out on Friday on the heels of the killing of a 35-year-old woman, Sarah Nyam, a mother of five who was shot dead in Fwapwa, Doi Village of the district allegedly by men of the Nigerian Army.

Doi is a neighbouring village to Dura village of the Du district where the missing Army General Alkali’s car was discovered in a mining pond some weeks ago.

The Army, through the Spokesman of the 3rd Armoured Division, Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Rukuba, Colonel Kayode Ogunsanya denied knowledge of the incident as he told Saturday Vanguard, “The Army left that place about two weeks ago, I have not received any report of any killing, I will advise you to ask the Police, they may know about the incident.”

The Media Officer of the Operation Save Haven, Major Umar Adam’s phone was not  through at the time of the report and the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Mathias Tyopev promised to get back once he had information about the incident.

But the Divisional Police Officer, DPO in charge of Bukuru, Jos South Local Government of the state had visited the scene of the recent incident and had taken reports.

However, husband to the deceased, Edward Nyam, said his wife was shot dead on Thursday night at about 7:35pm and he alleged that the military who had visited the village shot his wife.

According to him, “My wife had relocated with the children on Monday from Lapamdet village to Doi as result of harassment of the military on the daily basis, but just yesterday (Thursday) around 7:35pm she was shot dead.”

Pointing at the corpse, he added, “You can see the gun shot on her body and the wall of the house, we have five children  and I am left alone with the children.  We didn’t know what we did to deserve this.  Since the discovery of the missing army General’s car in Dura Du, we  in Doi cannot sleep and we don’t know our own crime.”

Village Head of Doi, Da Michael Gyang, while speaking on the incident, said the community is being humiliated by the military without any crime stressing, “Three days ago, about  3am,  soldiers came to the village here in Doi to block all the roads linking Doi with other hamlets here, they stopped people from accessing their homes, they burgled every shop here, eating our chicken and goat, ransacking our homes.

 

-Vanguard