A Jos-based pastor has narrated a chilling account of how soldiers allegedly sought permission from armed Fulani militants before retrieving the bodies of murdered church members in Plateau State.

In a video shared on Facebook on Monday, the pastor said the incident happened in the Dong community of Jos North Local Government Area after a deadly attack that claimed several lives, including a woman and her child who had gone there on a condolence visit.

According to him, the church members could not enter the area to recover the corpses because of fear of further attacks, so they called on soldiers for help. What followed, he said, was both shocking and heartbreaking.

“They had to call the militants for permission”

In the pastor’s words: “When they killed our members in Dong, there was a woman and her child who came for a condolence visit. They were attacked and killed by Fulani militants. There was also one of our young men who had earlier been killed by the same militants.”

“We contacted soldiers for help, and when they came, they said they needed to call the Fulani people to get permission before entering to remove the corpses. In my presence, they called them, and the Fulani people said they could only have 10 minutes to go in and take the bodies.”

He added that the soldiers urged the locals to hurry during the retrieval, repeatedly warning that their “10 minutes” was almost up.

“When they managed to bring the corpses, the soldiers left immediately. We did not know whether they left us to be killed or what. But by the grace of God, we buried our people and returned home,” he said.

These claims by the pastor have not been independently verified to be factual, but it adds to the troubling perception of helplessness of civilians in parts of Plateau State and Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where repeated farmer-herder clashes have left hundreds dead and thousands displaced.