Originally published in CBN
Another 25 Christians have been gruesomely murdered in the last 12 days as the ongoing genocide in Nigeria continues.
Nigeria remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List. In a recent report, the organisation noted that of the 4 476 Christians killed recently for their faith worldwide, 3 100 or 69% took place in Nigeria.
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That staggering number only begins to paint the picture of the carnage, killing, and horror taking place.
Thousands have watched their neighbours or family members be killed or abducted. Many others have watched their churches, homes, and fields be burned to the ground.
Just last week, a Muslim ethnic group known as the Fulani herdsmen killed two Christians in Nigeria’s Nasarawa state and two others in Plateau state following the slaughter of 11 Christians earlier in the week, Morning Star News reports.
According to the outlet, the jihadist also invaded a village in Keana County while people slept. Two Christians were killed, and another was abducted.
“Keana Local Government Area is no longer safe,” said Musa Adamu, a village resident. “Our peaceful home, where we enjoyed all the comforts, has been turned into a den of armed bandits. Prior to Thursday night’s attack, there was a kidnapping case in the Giza community, where a husband and wife were kidnapped from their house, and up till this moment, there’s no news on their whereabouts.”
On the same night, Fulani herdsmen killed two Christians and 11 others in the central part of the state, including coordinated attacks in Riyom, sources told Morning Star News.
According to several reports, it has been a non-stop rampage as Nigeria’s Middle Belt is littered with the corpses of slain Christians.
Rev Simon Nbach of Flaming Fire Ministry in Anwule, Benue state, Nigeria, was among 10 Christians killed by Fulani herdsmen on November 3. During the attacks, the extremists also burned down a Catholic Church building and destroyed dozens of homes.
Village resident Ojay Ojonya told Morning Star News he lost relatives in the assault.
“Lord, please come to our aid,” he pleaded.
Meanwhile, hundreds mourned the loss of seven Christians, including a 12-year-old boy, who were killed in an attack the Kaduna state.
“We have laid to rest seven of our beloved Christians who were killed by terrorists and Fulani herdsmen,” area resident Daniel Dodo told Morning Star News. “The funeral is a ceremony of tears being shed by Christians in the midst of deliberate violence against us because of our Christian faith.”
The funeral was held for Yohanna Adamu, 46; Bala Bude Chawai, 57; Yakubu Bala, 50; Abubakar Ya’u, 30; Ishaya Dauda, 56; Monday Nveneh, 46; and Savior Emmanuel, 12, the outlet reported.
“This funeral has become a powerful display of unity, faith, and shared resilience for Christians,” Dodo said. “Families wept, neighbours embraced, and prayers filled the air as hundreds gathered to honour the Christian victims, innocent lives taken too soon, but never forgotten.”
Since 2009, 52 000 Christians have been killed in the country, and as CBN News reported, one of the worst attacks came during this summer. In June, an estimated 200 Nigerian Christians were killed after heavily armed Fulani jihadists attacked villages in Yelwata, a farming community in Guma County, Benue State, over the course of 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 neighbouring towns.
“We are about six to seven million Nigerians living in Benue, and over 97% of them are Christians. They are Baptists, 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.”
According to the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Belief (APPG), millions of Muslim Fulani live in Nigeria and the Sahel, the sub-Saharan region of Africa. And while the Fulani comprise hundreds of different clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, some hold to radical Islamist ideology.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State in West Africa Province) and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
The attacks were once limited to Nigeria’s north-central zone, but the violence has been spreading toward southern states. And according to a World Watch List report, a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda.
President Donald Trump recently designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern and said he would potentially stop aid and introduce sanctions over the government if more is not done to protect Christians.
He warned that the US may send military aid to assist. He wrote on Truth Social, “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”
More than 7 000 Christians were massacred in Nigeria in the first 220 days alone, according to Intersociety, a not-for-profit human rights and democracy advocacy organisation in Nigeria.
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