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four children when this attack took place. They first heard gunshots, she said, and then the
attackers came to their house.
I took some of the chairs to block the door, but they used their machetes to break
down the door and came in. They were speaking Fulani. One of them spoke in
Hausa. I didn’t recognize any of them. I heard them say, “Burn the house!” My
husband tried to escape through the window. They then started to attack him with
a machete. I started to scream. They started hitting me in the head with their
machetes. I put up my arms to protect myself. After they cut me up, they went to the
children’s room.
The woman said she was “struggling with my own pains” and “covered in blood,” so she did not
see what happened in the adjacent room. 171 Her mother-in-law, who entered the house following
the attack, told Human Rights Watch that she discovered the bloody corpses of the husband, his
second wife, and two children—ages eight and six—inside. The mutilated body of the second wife
was on a bed with a small baby next to it. “They cut open her stomach,” the mother-in-law recalled.
“The child that was in my daughter [in-law] … was also cut.” The baby was a girl. 172
The attackers butchered residents and torched houses before disappearing back into the night.
“The attack lasted until around 4:30 [a.m.] when the military arrived,” recalled one witness. “When
the attackers saw their lights they disappeared.” 173
Plateau State government officials responded quickly to the massacre. Hours after the attack, the
commissioner for information, Gregory Yenlong, led a delegation of journalists to visit the injured
and tour the scene of the killing. 174 Governor Jonah Jang and the paramount traditional ruler also
paid visits that day to Dogo Nahawa. 175 The following day, March 8, state government officials
participated in a mass burial in Dogo Nahawa for the victims.
There are conflicting reports as to how many people died in the attacks. The Plateau State police
commissioner released a statement on March 10, 2010, stating that 70 victims were buried in the
171 Human Rights Watch interview with a resident in Dogo Nahawa, February 4, 2012.
172 Human Rights Watch interview with a resident in Dogo Nahawa, February 4, 2012.
173 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with a resident in Dogo Nahawa, March 8, 2010. A witness in Ratat also recalled that the
military arrived at about 4:30 a.m. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with a Ratsat resident, Ratsat, March 8, 2010.
174 See Isa Abdulsalami, “300 feared killed in fresh Plateau violence,” The Guardian (Lagos), March 8, 2010.
175 See Muh’d Sani and Golu Timothy, “Over 200 Killed In Fresh Jos Crisis,” Leadership (Abuja), March 7, 2010.
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