Nigerian Army Reportedly Kills 200 Villagers

Soldiers opened fire on villagers in central Nigeria and razed four communities, killing more than 200 people, witnesses said Tuesday.

The massacre began Monday afternoon in Gbeji and spread to neighboring Vaase, Anyiin and Zaki-Bian near the place where 19 soldiers were found hacked to death Oct. 12, regional government officials said.

Farmer Daniel Gbeji said soldiers gathered men in the main market square of his village, which bears his family’s name, then executed them.

“An armored car with a [troop transport truck] loaded with Nigerian army [soldiers] entered the village. . . . Then they started shooting, and they killed more than 100 people,” Gbeji said by telephone from Makurdi, where he was being interviewed by state government officials.

Shehu Tarna Umah, a reporter for Radio Benue, accompanied a television crew Tuesday to the area.

“In Zaki-Bian town, the whole market was razed--there were over 100 bodies on the ground,” Tarna Umah said by phone from Makurdi, the Benue state capital.

Nigerian army spokesman Col. Felix Chukwuma denied that soldiers had killed any villagers along the border of Benue and Taraba states.

A simmering ethnic conflict gained national prominence this month after soldiers were abducted by ethnic Tiv militiamen and hacked to death. The soldiers killed in the Oct. 12 incident were buried Monday with full military honors in Abuja, the administrative capital.

Gbeji said he hid in bushes while the massacre in his village took place.

“[The soldiers] called people to come,” he said. “They came. They said they should sit down, then a man turned to the commander for the order to start shooting. Nobody was able to escape.”