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The recent massacre of an estimated 200 Nigerian Christians last week is sending shock waves around the world with one international aid organization calling it the “worst killing spree” in the region yet.
Heavily armed Fulani jihadists attacked Christian villagers in Yelwata, a farming community in Guma County, Benue State, over two days.
Micheel Odeh James with Truth Nigeria told CBN News that Benue State is a predominantly Christian community, and Yelwata was a settlement for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or people who fled previous Fulani militant attacks in neighboring towns.
“We are about 6 to 7 million Nigerians living in Benue, and over 97% of them are Christians. They are Baptist, they are Methodists, they are Catholics. Militants set fire to their buildings as people slept, and attacked with machetes anyone who tried to flee,” James recounted.
He added that the scene was a gruesome “genocidal massacre.”
“(It was) not just slaughtering, not just macheting, (but) they locked some people up…and then doused them with gasoline and then set them ablaze,” he described. “Babies were burned.”
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In a first-hand report given to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), police were able to stop the attackers in one spot as they tried to storm Yelewata’s St. Joseph’s Church, where 700 lived. The jihadists then turned to the town’s market square, where they reportedly used fuel to set fire to the doors of the displaced people’s accommodation, before opening fire in an area where more than 500 people were asleep.
A local clergy member told ACN that in the three-hour killing spree, 200 people were killed.
One eyewitness told Genocide Watch that 40 gunmen stormed the village on motorcycles in pairs, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” and firing at people indiscriminately.
“They came from Rukubi in Doma, Keana, Obi, and other counties in Nasarawa State,” said Mton Matthias, a local youth leader. “They surrounded Yelwata, speaking Hausa and Fufulde, and began slaughtering people—mostly women, children, and displaced families who thought they had found safety here.”
“We’re still finding bodies in the bushes,” he added. “The death toll is rising every hour.”
James told CBN News, “Christians are being slaughtered in a gruesome manner in Nigeria’s middle belt where Christians predominate, and unfortunately, nothing is happening (to protect them).”
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The spokesperson with Truth Nigeria says the attack in Nigeria’s Middle Belt is not being widely publicized for political reasons.
“The previous government that’s under Muhammad Buhari, who is a Fulani man, passed the killings off as ‘farmers clash,’ but when we defined it as ‘genocidal killing prompted by land grabbing,’ they get angry. So they started suppressing the press from carrying out the report of these killings.”
“A new president has come and he has (only) liberalized the space and that is why you can see to a certain extent the media are carrying it halfheartedly,” James added.
Rev. Fr. Remigius Ihyula, Director of Makurdi’s Justice, Peace and Development Foundation (JPDF), agrees and told Genocide Watch that the violence against Christians in the region is not random.
“These Fulani militias are not just killing—they’re clearing land to claim it,” he said. “And they’re being allowed to do it.”
However, faithful believers are spreading the tragic news and asking for international help, warning the jihadist militants are ethnically cleansing the region of its Christian presence.
“Some families were completely wiped out,” Matthew Mnyam, a community leader in Yelwata, told International Christian Concern (ICC). “A man, his two wives, and all their children were burned alive. It was a well-coordinated assault from both eastern and western flanks of the community.”
Faith leaders in the United States are responding and some are calling the U.S. State Department to redesignate Nigeria as a country of particular concern (CPC).
A CPC is defined as a country “engaged in” or tolerating “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
“America must use its influence to protect Christians and others being targeted by Islamists,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “The U.S. government should redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and sanction the Nigerian government.”
Faith leaders are asking believers around the world to pray for Christians in Nigeria.
“The massacre of up to 200 Christians in Yelewata, Nigeria, is a heartbreaking reminder of the suffering our brothers and sisters endure for their faith,” said Brian Orme, president and CEO of Global Christian Relief.
“We grieve with the families and stand with the Nigerian church as they persevere in hope. Now is the time for the global body of Christ to unite in prayer and action—making it clear that our persecuted family is not alone,” he added.
Nigeria currently ranks as the seventh worst place in the world for Christians, according to Open Doors‘ World Watch List.
RELATED: Nigerian Horror: Terrorists Attack 7-Year-Old With Machete, Slaughter Family
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