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A local official of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR has emphasized on the need to investigate on the February 154 killings in Ngar-buh, a village in the Donga Mantung divisiion of the restive North West region.
Speaking to the BBC, the UNHCR official described the incident as a serious protection of civilians incident”. “The information we have so far is that 22 civilians were killed and tragically out of those 22 it looked like 14 of them were children, 11 of them were girls and to make things even worse, 9 out of the 14 children were believed to have been very young, perhaps under the age of 5” he said.
In total the official revealed, 9 houses were burnt down though the attack focused mainly on two houses. “A pregnant woman was killed. Another pregnant woman was shot and seriously injured and unfortunately she has lost her child … she’s in a critical condition” he went on.
He also highlighted the fact that the upsurge of violence over the past weeks has affected civilians more, leaving them running for safety. To the local UNHCR official, the number of refugees that have escaped the area to Nigeria “has gone up by a thousand in the last few weeks … the number there is i think 60.0000 or more”.
With respect to who carried out the Ngar-buh masssacre however, he stressed that the UN humanitarian agency is not a human rights investigative body. “we are focusing on the response to affected citizens and populations … it is fair to say whoever did it, there needs to be a proper investigation”.
The local population he adds is terrified following the happening. “Which ever group did this has threatened that there could be more violence ahead so the people that we have talked to are extremely traumatised. They didn’t expect this in this particular area, usually women and children are hiding n areas which they will regard as safe so the local population has really been horrified by this instant” he states.
The death toll of the massacre later rose to 35. A candle light vigil has been organised to mourn victims of the 14 February massacre.
MMI
