ICC Note: Nigerian woman Joy Abuh was left to care for her children on her own after her husband was brutally murdered in an attack by suspected Fulani herders. He was shot and then hacked to death with machetes after the Fulani herders made yet another attack on a village in Benue State. The residents of Benue state say that these attacks have been increasing in the past few months and they are all afraid for their lives. This conflict between the farmers and the herders has existed for a while, the herders claiming to need grazing land for their cattle and seizing the farm land for that purpose, killing farmers and destroying homes in the process. Some are questioning whether there might also be another purpose behind these attacks by Muslims herders, since the recent ones seem to be targeting Christian villages and churches.

08/10/2016, Benue, Nigeria (BBC News) – Farms have been built on ancient routes of a semi-nomadic community in Nigeria, causing violence that has already claimed hundreds of lives this year.

Cradling her baby son, Benjamin, Joy Abuh stares intently when she talks about the moment her life changed forever.

“The herdsmen shot my husband as he was riding his motorbike,” she told me matter-of-factly. “They then used a machete to hack him to death.”

She says his body was found in the bush several days later.

It was so badly decomposed that villagers buried it before Mrs. Abuh had the chance to see her husband for the last time.

Locals in Agatu district in Nigeria’s central Benue state say Fulani herdsmen killed dozens of people during a string of attacks this spring.

Many homes were set on fire and reduced to piles of bricks.

Some of the villagers are still recovering from their injuries: I saw one man hobbling along on crutches as a result of a gunshot wound.

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