Tears in Adamawa as Women Slain by Soldiers Laid to Rest in Heart-Wrenching Mass Burial

By Tgnews Reporter 

Amid chants of sorrow and simmering fury, thousands gathered Wednesday at the Lamurde Local Government Secretariat for a mass burial that doubled as a raw cry for justice, laying to rest nine women gunned down in an alleged hail of Nigerian Army bullets just a day prior.

The tragic tableau bodies shrouded in white cloths and grass mats, aligned in silent solidarity etched an indelible scar on the Bachama-dominated community, where grief intertwined with demands for accountability in a deadly clash that has fractured ethnic lines.

The victims, all unarmed women from Lamurde and surrounding villages, were identified during the somber ceremony as Florence Frank, Suzy Tanko, Marry Talmon, Mercy Kennedy, Lucky Yakubu, Pwamwasari Tami, Mary Shikauno, Destiny Gibson, and Hunbokwama Nickson.

Their deaths, stemming from Monday’s confrontation near a disputed border area, have thrust Adamawa into national headlines, spotlighting the perils of communal tensions escalating into military mishaps.

“We bury our mothers, sisters, and daughters today not just in earth, but in the weight of unanswered questions,” intoned a local elder as mourners wailed under a relentless sun.

The burial site, transformed into a sea of white attire symbolizing purity and loss, became a stage for unfiltered outrage. Community leaders unveiled the names amid eulogies, vowing that the women’s stories tillers of soil, nurturers of homes would not fade into obscurity.

The Bwati Bachama Youth Wing, voice of several dialect groups in the region, led the charge against the military. Secretary-General Abner Kwakano, his voice cracking with resolve, lambasted the army’s role.

“We maintain without hesitation that the army opened fire on innocent women, resulting in deaths and injuries. This is the truth as witnessed directly by the community,” he declared to thunderous applause.

Kwakano called for a “transparent, independent investigation,” warning that half-measures would mock the victims’ sacrifice and embolden further impunity.

Yet, the narrative fractured along ethnic fault lines. The Chobo Youth Forum, representing the rival group, fired back in a pointed statement signed by Secretary-General Engr. Gideon Sam, rejecting any implication of provocation from their side.

“We were the victims—our villages razed, our people attacked by Bachama militia,” Sam asserted, branding attempts to shift blame onto Chobo youths as “false, misleading, and dangerous.”

The forum urged a holistic probe into the skirmish’s origins, which reportedly began over land disputes but spiraled when alleged militias clashed, drawing in soldiers on a peacekeeping patrol.