"We Buried 347 in the Dark": Shocking Admission from El-Rufai's Government

 "We Buried 347 in the Dark": Shocking Admission from El-Rufai's Government

In a stark admission, the Kaduna State Government has confessed to orchestrating the secret mass burial of hundreds of victims killed in a single weekend in December 2015. The victims were members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, who died during a military operation in Zaria.

This confession came from the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Balarabe Abbas, while testifying before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. His statement directly contradicted the Nigerian Army's vehement denial that any mass graves existed from the Zaria incident. In fact, the Army's representative, then-Colonel AK Ibrahim, had sworn under oath that the military did not kill anyone.

Alhaji Balarabe, who was reappointed as SSG, provided chilling details. He stated that the state government supervised the nighttime burial of at least 347 corpses in a single mass grave in Mando, on the outskirts of Kaduna—roughly 100 kilometers from where the killings occurred.

The operation lasted over six hours. The bodies, both men and women, were buried together without the traditional Islamic funeral rites. No effort was made to identify the victims or locate their families. The secret, hurried nature of the burial suggests a clear attempt to conceal the scale of the tragedy.

Before the Commission, Alhaji Balarabe outlined the government's actions in his own words:

"We were informed of possible fatalities after a night of clashes. The Governor directed me to assemble a team to assess the situation in Zaria. Given the state law requiring burial within 24 hours, we had to decide what to do with the bodies... We coordinated with the Army. The corpses—191 from the Army Depot and 156 from the ABU Teaching Hospital—were transported with military assistance. Our Director of Interfaith worked with Army officers on the ground. They counted each body during the burial. The total was 347."

This testimony paints a grim picture of a covert operation to dispose of the dead, starkly at odds with the official narrative presented for years.

Ten years after the massacre, I returned to the Mando cemetery. The mass grave remains starkly visible, a raw scar on the land. When the pit began to cave in—presumably under the weight of the 347 bodies within—it was filled with distinctive red sand. Now, while wild grasses whisper across the rest of the site, this patch of earth refuses life; not a single blade sprouts upon it.

These photographs were taken on Saturday, December 13th, 2025. I was guided by a witness who stood there before the bodies were laid to rest. Standing before that barren ground, we agreed: this grave must be marked. Without a marker, in another ten years, visitors may struggle to find the truth that this earth will not let grow.

Culled from the book "Survivors of the December 2015 Massacre of Shiites in Nigeria: The Unsilenced Voices". 

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