Barkin Ladi Was Put Under a Dusk Curfew After a Pastor Was Killed. The Gunmen Kept Coming Anyway.
A week ago a pastor died on the road to church at Dorowa Babuje. Plateau State ordered Barkin Ladi indoors from six to six, and the killing went on: a 22-year-old in Rakwok, three at Rakok, a police superintendent on the Gagshi road. How many died in all depends on who is counting.
Henry Elisha was twenty-two. He lived in Rakwok, a farming community in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State. On Monday night, September 21, gunmen attacked Rakwok and four neighbouring communities. Henry Elisha was one of the dead.
One day earlier, a pastor had died on the road to church at Dorowa Babuje, in the same local government area. We reported it last Monday.
Plateau State imposed a curfew. Dusk to dawn, six in the evening to six in the morning, across Barkin Ladi, Bokkos and Mangu.
On Tuesday night, with the curfew in force, assailants killed a Chief Superintendent of Police on the Gagshi road between Barkin Ladi and Bokkos.
The curfew kept the villages indoors. It did not keep the gunmen out. And a week on, nobody can tell you how many people Barkin Ladi has buried since the pastor, because the counts do not agree.
