Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
The Tiv Youth Organisation (TYO) has raised the alarm over what it described as an alleged ethnic cleansing of Tiv people in Taraba State being perpetrated by Jukun militia.
TYO while drawing the attention of all Nigerians and the international community to the menace, lamented that hundreds of innocent Tiv men and women, the young and the old were being butchered in cold blood like animals in Taraba communities in the crisis.
In a statement signed by its President-General, Timothy Hembaor, and made available to our correspondent, the TYO alleged that no day passes without more Taraba indigenes of Tiv extraction being hacked to death by the rampaging Jukun militia a development which he noted, had left most Tiv communities deserted and now occupied by the same Jukun militia while farms and other economic property owned by Tiv people in Taraba State have been destroyed.
The organisation recalled with sadness, the recent killing of two students and a lecturer both of Tiv extraction in Wukari town by yet-to-be apprehended militia and wondered why prominent people in the area have not come out to condemn the killings.
“These unprovoked attacks in Taraba against Tiv have continued unabated and have assumed the dimension that are not only well coordinated but are also sponsored and targeted at wiping out the entire Tiv race in that state. We vehemently condemn these attacks and call for an end to the killings.
“We make bold to say that as the umbrella body of Tiv youths world wide, we are grossly not satisfied with the manner the government of Taraba State has handled the crisis. The Darius Ishaku administration has clearly demonstrated bias in its approach to the conflict. Its silence and inaction whenever Tiv people are killed puts the Ishaku administration favourably on the side of his kinsmen the Jukun.”