No fewer than nine suspected
Fulani herdsmen, yesterday, allegedly gang-raped a 15-year-old girl and
two housewives (names withheld) at gunpoint, in Tse Ikyuer, Yandev,
Mbagwen in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State.
Two of the victims, who narrated their ordeal to Vanguard in
Makurdi, the state capital, said after beating and raping them, the
herdsmen also made away with their N60,000 and two phones.
According to the women, who could barely
walk, “one of us (the teenage girl) was raped repeatedly, after being
thoroughly beaten by the herdsmen. At the moment, she is neither able to
walk nor talk.”
Before they were taken to an undisclosed
hospital in Makurdi for medical attention by the Police, the women, who
spoke at intervals, said: “The men with their leader came to our home in
the afternoon and pleaded that we give them water to drink.
“We obliged them, but they noticed the
absence of our husbands, and when their leader asked of our husband’s
whereabouts, we innocently told him that they travelled but would be
back much later.
“After drinking the water, they left, only
for about nine of them to come back later in the day, armed with guns
and machetes and asked us to lie down and have sex with them or they
will kill everybody.”
The women who wept profusely, explained that
four of the armed herdsmen fired shots in the air to terrify and also
compel them to submit to their demands.
She said: “After defiling us, they beat us mercilessly and collected over N60,000 from us and also took away our handsets.”
The women said that the leader of the gang
was well known in the community but he fled from the area with his
family and cattle shortly after the incident.
Vanguard gathered
from a Police source that one of the suspects had been arrested while
the hunt for the leader of the gang and seven others had begun.
The state Police Public Relations Officer,
PPRO, Superintendent (SP) Daniel Ezeala, who confirmed the incident,
said investigations into the matter had commenced.
