ICC Note: Imagine being forced from your home because gangs of radical Islamist thugs wielding machetes, gasoline, and deadly rifles were systematically destroying villages and your own town was the next target. Now picture that you’ve escaped with your life and taken refuge in the closest safe haven you can find, when just days later you’re being forced out by men on horseback threatening you with whips. This is the experience for more than 400 Christians in Benue State, Nigeria who fled from their home villages in Agatu Local Government Area (LGA), and now have faced eviction from the palace grounds of a tribal leader who is reportedly tired of the noise the group is making. These represent the continuing struggles persecuted Christians are enduring in the midst of an ongoing depopulation of Christian farmlands in central Nigeria.

By Emmanuel Mayah

3/10/16 Oturkpo, Nigeria (AllAfrica) – Hundreds of survivors of the Agatu killings in Benue State who were taking refuge outside the Oturkpo palace of the paramount ruler of Idomaland, the Och’ Idoma, have been chased away in what is double jeopardy for a lot of them

The refugees said they were chased on the orders of His Royal Majesty, Elias Ekoyi Obekpa.

The palace of the monarch wouldn’t comment on the allegation, with an official saying only a certain refugee committee can do so. The committee could not be reached for days.

Women, children and the elderly are among the over 400 survivors from Aila community who fled the massacre by Fulani herdsmen, walked for days in groups, before getting mass transportation assistance to Oturkpo where they took shelter in a pavilion outside the royal palace.

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