The attackers struck Tse-Biliji and Tse-Nyaku and nearby settlements in the Mbatian and Mbazum areas. Local sources said about 30 heavily armed men arrived on more than a dozen motorcycles and opened fire on homes and on people who ran for the bush. Six bodies had been recovered when the first accounts came out. A resident of Biliji said nine people were killed, though not every body had been found.
Later local accounts also put the number of dead at nine and warned that it could climb as searchers go through farmland and brush. Several injured villagers were taken for treatment. Others were still unaccounted for days later. Houses were burned in the raid, and families have left for safer ground.
Some Nigerian Christian outlets identify the dead as Christians and the attackers as Fulani militants. Officials have not confirmed the figures or the identity of the gunmen. The local government chairman and the state police spokesperson had not confirmed the numbers when the accounts were filed. The attackers have not been caught. Benue lies in Nigeria's Middle Belt, where farming communities, most of them Christian, have buried their dead after raid after raid for years. This attack came only two days after three people were killed at Omulonye, also in Benue, according to local accounts.
It is harvest season. The people of Tse-Biliji were working land their families have worked for generations. Now some of them are sleeping in other people's yards.
What a body count cannot hold
Numbers are how the world keeps score of a tragedy. Six, or nine, or twelve. The number moves from one account to the next, and people argue over it. My friend, the Lord did not need a recount. He knew every one of them by name before the first shot was fired.
There is a man in Ukum tonight who walked into the bush to look for his brother, and he has not found him. There is a mother who will not know, for some days yet, whether to mourn or to hope. Statistics do not touch that. Only God can.
The Savior told His followers plainly that this world would not love them. He did not promise them safe roads or quiet harvests. He promised something harder and better.
"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:10)
Notice the word is "theirs," not "will be theirs someday." The kingdom belongs to the persecuted now. A man can lose his barn, his field, and his house, and still hold a deed that no gunman can burn. That is not a comfort the world understands. It is the comfort of the cross, where Christ Himself was cut down by men who thought the matter finished. Three days later, it was not finished.
The Scripture also tells us where the Lord stands toward the grieving.
"The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalm 34:18)
Nigh means near. He is not off in some far country while the villagers of Benue bury their own. He is standing in the dust with them.
The duty that falls to the rest of us
A believer in a comfortable country has a plain duty here, and it is not to feel bad for a day and move on. Pay attention, because those who do the killing count on being ignored. Speak up for the families, and press the officials God has set over the nations, ours included, to defend the lives of the innocent. Government holds the sword for exactly this purpose, to protect the harmless and to punish the one who kills them. It is right to ask that the sword be used for that.
Give to the relief of displaced families through honest hands. Remember that a brother in Benue is as much a member of the body of Christ as the man in the next pew.
And remember the other side of the matter. The man with the rifle is a sinner too, and Christ died for sinners of every tribe. The gospel does not excuse his crime, and it does not write him off. It calls him to repent, and it will call him for as long as he draws breath. Justice and mercy both belong to God, and He will not mix them up.
Those who died in Ukum on Oct. 9 are not forgotten in heaven. The hands that closed their eyes on earth were not the last hands to hold them. If they belonged to Christ, they are home now, and home is a place no raider can ever find.