Tears, Anguish as Zike Community Buries 51 Victims of Gruesome Attack

Grief hung heavily in the air as the Zike community in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State laid to rest 51 of its residents brutally murdered in a pre-dawn attack that has once again cast a dark shadow over the troubled region.

The victims, mostly women and children, were gunned down in the early hours of Monday when yet-to-be-identified assailants stormed the sleepy village, firing indiscriminately. The massacre is the latest in a string of violent assaults that have plagued Plateau State in recent times.

At the mass burial held in the community, emotions ran high as families, friends, and sympathizers wept uncontrollably. Traditional mourners draped in black wailed as the victims’ coffins were lowered into the earth — a harrowing scene that has become all too familiar in the region.

Speaking at the funeral, a visibly distraught community leader, Davidson Malison, described the attack as “disheartening” and lamented the scale of the devastation.

“I can tell you the situation is very disheartening,” Malison said. “We are still searching for more corpses. Something needs to be done to put an end to this.”

The Irigwe women leader, Mary Dikwa, echoed similar concerns, calling on the government to step up its responsibility in securing lives and property.

“They have been killing us in this our community,” Dikwa said in tears. “Several times they will come and attack us. This situation has gone out of hand.”

Monday’s carnage came barely two weeks after another deadly assault left over 50 people dead and several others severely injured, despite repeated reassurances by the government to restore peace to the North-Central state.

Reacting to the renewed wave of violence, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered security agencies to track down the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

“I have instructed security agencies to thoroughly investigate this crisis and identify those responsible for orchestrating these violent acts,” the President said in a statement released by his spokesman, Bayo Onanuga. “We cannot allow this devastation and the tit-for-tat attacks to continue. Enough is enough.”

As the Zike community mourns yet another loss, residents are left clinging to hope — that someday soon, peace will return to their land and they can finally bury their dead without fearing for the lives of the living.