Fulani herdsmen on Monday morning (Aug. 4) killed a Christian woman in a village in Plateau state, Nigeria, the latest of 17 Christians slain in the area since July 15, sources said.
The herdsmen raided Njin village at about 10 a.m., said resident Dorcas Ishaya.
“Fulani herdsmen are at it again,” Ishaya said in a message to Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “This morning at 10 a.m., Monday, August 4, they attacked Njin village in the Kopmur area of Mushere chiefdom, in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau state, killing a Christian woman.”
Area resident Ezekiel Tongs added in a message that the assailants robbed and torched properties.
“These herdsmen did not just attack the village but also carted away domestic animals from houses of Christians,” Tongs said. “Many houses have been burned down, and many Christians displaced.”
Nigerian troops were reportedly dispatched to the area.
Ishaya also said that two Christians were shot and killed in an ambush in the Bokkos area on July 15, “and their bodies burnt to ashes.”
A community leader from the area, Yohana Margif, said on Friday (Aug.1) that armed Fulani herdsmen have driven Christians from nine villages that they are now occupying.
“The Fulani terrorists have set up tents in our lands on which their cattle are grazing, which is visible for everybody to see,” he said in a press statement. “They have built tents and are openly carrying guns around. They have practically and brazenly usurped our lands and livestock.”
He identified the occupied villages as Hokk, Kaban, Kadim, Nawula, Dulu, Mbor, Margif, Chirang and Mangor.
“Now that the terrorists’ identity is known, let the relevant government authorities direct the security agencies to go after them, so that our people can return to their ancestral homes,” Margif said.
In Mangor village, 14 Christians returning from a market in Bokkos town were ambushed and killed by armed herdsmen on July 24, residents said.
“At about 4 p.m., 14 Christians from our area were ambushed and killed by Fulani terrorists,” area resident Kefas Mallai said. “Three other Christians were injured in the attack, which occurred at Mangor village as they were returning from Bokkos town market.”
A community leader from the Bokkos area, Farmasum Fuddang, corroborated the account of the 14 slain Christians.
“The Christian victims were returning from the weekly market in Bokkos town when their vehicle was ambushed,” Fuddang said in a press statement. “Victims included women and little babies.”
Amalau Amalau, chairman of the Bokkos Local Government Council, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News that herdsmen violence had become epidemic. Area resident Kenneth Samson asked if there is nothing the government will do to end the killings in the Bokkos area.
“This is too much,” Samson said. “We can’t continue to bury children and the elderly. The government must act decisively to end these killings of Christians.”
Some residents said more than 70 other area Christians have been killed by Fulani herdsmen in three months.
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.
Nigeria remained among the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,100 (69 percent) were in Nigeria, according to the WWL.
“The measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology,” the report stated.
In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.
The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.
Nigeria ranked seventh on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
