Soldiers on revenge mission to Koshinsa Local Government Area of Benue State have been accused of ransacking villages and raping women in the name of hunting for the killers of their colleagues.
Three different residents have reached out FIJ to lament the new “inhumane moves” of the soldiers who have laid siege to the community for nearly two weeks.
READ ALSO: ALERT: Soldiers ‘Building Up’ to Raid Defenceless Benue Villages Again
On Friday, FIJ reported that the soldiers were building up to launch fresh attacks in the villages already overwhelmed with tension and tragedy. Residents are now expressing displeasure over the manner in which the army has been ransacking shops and overtaking of places of worships.
One resident told FIJ that the soldiers had turned a local church, St. Lucy’s Parish at Awajir area, to an operational base, denying the worshipers of their activities.
“Pray for my home place, Shangev Tiev, so they can survive this onslaught by well-armed soldiers,” a resident told FIJ on Friday. “They have taken over the parish house at Awajir and have made it a barrack of sorts. This has become their operational base. From here, they pounce on anything they want and it is theirs.”
The resident said the soldiers entered “a popular night club at Awajir called Mancity, drank and smoked for free for about three hours and walked away feeling quite accomplished”.
Three other residents verified the aforementioned claim and added that “these soldiers watch football for free anywhere and at the end take a percentage of the viewing center’s collection”.
“They raped women after they drank in the club. If you see what people are going through. It’s so pathetic,” another resident told FIJ on Saturday — a claim corroborated by four independent sources who spoke with our reporter.
Findings revealed that Shangev Tiev, where the soldiers are currently looting and raping, is about 50kilometres away from Bonta community where 12 soldiers were killed by bandits.
FIJ had reported how, in the previous weeks, the soldiers killed scores of defenceless civilians and displaced hundreds of women and children in the course of tracking the killers of their colleagues.
FIJ called Muhammad Yerima, the Army spokesperson, on nphne but his number was unreachable. He also did not respond to our message as of press time.
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