Sophia Michaels
According to a report by SaharaReporters, some suspected Fulani herders who were pretending to be tricycle riders in Enugu State, South East Nigeria have caused a stir in the state.
The herders invaded Benue Yam sellers in Artisan Market, attacked them with daggers and stolen hundreds of tubers of yams.
Artisan market dominated by northerners selling goat and sheep is located at Naira Triangle by Enugu Okigwe road, adjacent to the NNPC Limited Mega filling station.
There have been reports of organised attacks on non-Hausa/Fulani trading in the market and nearby on a weekly basis. Late last year, some of the criminals who had taken over the market attacked and burnt a trailer truck and police patrol van.
However, SaharaReporters learnt that the latest attack took place on Sunday morning when Hausa/Fulani boys in their numbers invaded the yam section of the market which people from Benue State dominated and attacked them.
A video of one of the victims of the attack which SaharaReporters obtained on Tuesday showed a young man lying in hospital bed with machete cuts over his body. The video also shows that one of his fingers is severed.
The victim who was identified as John was heard narrating on the hospital bed how six Hausa/Fulani boys invaded their shops, attacked him with dagger knives, and thereafter looted their yams.
He narrated, “After striking me with their dagger knives, I fainted. They didn’t run away, they stayed and were discussing in Hausa that since I was alone, they should kill me. I prayed to God to give me strength and save me. Then I was already bleeding profusely. I was bleeding from the finger they severed, head and all over the body. So I took off and ran. They pursued me and I hid.”
“After about 15 minutes they went back inside the Artisan Market, mobilised other Fulani/Hausa boys again and returned to the place where we were selling yams. For more than 30 minutes they were there loading our yams in their ‘Keke’ tricycle. They ransacked my shop, collected money and parked every valuable thing that was there and left. My own yams they carried away are 210 tubers.”
Lamenting how the Hausa/Fulani
