Up to 200 Christians were massacred by Islamic extremists in Nigeria’s troubled Benue state last Friday evening, according to a Catholic charity reporting that it’s the “single worst atrocity” in a region that has become known for communal attacks.
The militants attacked families displaced by radicalized Fulani herdsman who were housed in buildings repurposed as temporary accommodations in the market square of Yelewata in the Guma Local Government Area, shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” according to a Monday report from Aid to the Church in Need.
Buildings were torched as people were sleeping, and anyone who tried to flee was attacked with machetes. Local pastors told the charity that police had earlier repelled attackers who tried to swarm St. Joseph’s Church, a facility housing over 700 internally displaced persons.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
At the market square, sources allege that the militants used fuel to set fire to the doors of the displacement accommodation and then opened fire as more than 500 slept.
“When we heard the shots and saw the militants, we committed our lives to God. This morning, I thank God I am alive,” parish priest, Father Ukuma Jonathan Angbianbee, told ACN. Angbianbee said he and others dropped to the floor of the church’s presbytery when they heard the shots fired.
“What I saw was truly gruesome. People were slaughtered. Corpses were scattered everywhere.”
Amnesty International Nigeria reported Saturday that at least 100 people were killed in the attack that occured between late Friday and the early hours of Saturday, noting that hundreds were injured without proper medical care and dozens are missing.
Although the initial death toll cited by the human rights monitor was at least 100, ACN states that data collected by the Diocese of Makurdi’s Foundation for Justice, Development and Peace estimated the death toll was closer to 200.
“The death toll makes it the single worst atrocity in the region, where there have been a sudden upsurge in attacks and increasing signs that a concerted militant assault is underway to force an entire community to leave,” the ACN report states.
Thousands displaced in Yelewata are victims of Fulani attacks on communities across Benue state. Many have now fled to neighboring towns and villages, ACN notes.
In Makurdi’s Gwer West Local Government Area, attacks that began over three weeks ago killed 100 people and displaced over 5,000.
Pope Leo XIV acknowledged Friday’s attack in his Sunday Angelus message, saying he is praying for those killed in “a terrible massacre,” most of whom were “sheltered by the local Catholic mission.” Leo prayed for “rural Christian communities of the Benue State who have been relentless victims of violence.”
Advocates have long called for global attention to the rising trend in recent years of what they say are genocide-like attacks on predominantly Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt states carried out by radicalized herders. Thousands of people have been killed in recent years, and many more have been displaced.
The Fulani people group numbers in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel region of Africa and consists of hundreds of clans and various lineages. While many don’t hold extremist views, others adhere to radical ideologies similar to the Islamic State or Boko Haram, according to the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief.
Church leaders have voiced concern that a “plan is underway to seize land and ethnically cleanse the region of its Christian presence,” according to ACN.
In Nigeria, nearly 10,000 Christians were killed by Islamic extremists between November 2022 and November 2024, according to a January report from the persecution watchdog group Global Christian Relief.
