This baby will never know her mother. Her mother will never sing
lullaby to her or rock her to sleep. Worse still, she will never suckle from
her mother’s breast.This is because just one week after her birth, suspected
Fulani herdsmen invaded their community in Mbalaagh Council Ward of Makurdi
Local Government Area of Benue State and murdered her mother, Felicia Asongo. The
baby, who looks so smallish for her age, was lucky to have been smuggled away
from the crisis by her grandmother during the attack in which 27 people were
allegedly killed. She is now being fed with baby milk under the watchful eyes
of her aged grandmother. For more than two weeks now, over 200 members of the
Mbalaagh Community have been taking refuge in the North Bank area of Makurdi,
with some of them sleeping under trees after the gruesome invasion. The baby
girl, who was yet to be given a name, was about three weeks old when the
reporter visited the North Bank area of Makurdi where the Mbalaagh people were
taking refuge. She slept peacefully in her grandmother’s arm, oblivious of what
had befallen her mother. Narrating the incident, Mama Margaret Asongo said the
heavily armed Fulani invaders came into their village at about 6.30am that
fateful Wednesday and started killing everyone in sight. “When they got to our
compound, I quickly carried my granddaughter and went into hiding. But my
daughter-in-law could not run because she just had a baby that week. So, they
killed her. “I am not happy at all that my daughter-in law was killed. I have
been thinking of how to take care of the five children that she left behind.
She was a farmer before her gruesome murder in the hand of Fulani herdsmen. ”Also
speaking, one of her sons, Abraham, said when they finally found Felicia’s
corpse, they had to hurriedly bury her in the night for fear that the Fulani
invaders would attack them again. Asked if they had any problem with the Fulani
herdsmen before the attack, Abraham alleged that the Fulanis’ cows destroyed
their farms and in the process of chasing the cows away, the herdsmen attacked
them.
Culled from The Sunnewsonline
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