Slaughters of Christians continued in Plateau state, Nigeria on Friday (May 8) as Fulani herdsmen killed 13 Christians in Bassa County, sources said.
Muslim Fulani gunmen killed the Christians in a pre-dawn attack on Ngbra Zongo community in Kwall District, said Joseph Chudu Yonkpa, spokesperson of area Miango communities in a statement issued in Jos.
Among those killed were three pregnant women, he said.
“The attack has left dozens of other Christians injured, hundreds of others displaced,” Yonkpa said.
Resident Lawrence Zongo said Christians in the community have suffered prior attacks.
“I am heartbroken about this unfortunate incident because this same village had experienced a tragic attack in the past which led to the killing of a pastor and dozens other Christians,” Zongo said. “The armed herdsmen moved from one house to another attacking the Christian victims in their homes. Dozens of other Christians were injured, while hundreds of others were displaced.”
On April 16 in Riwhie-Chwo village in Bassa County’s Miango District, herdsmen ambushed and beheaded another Christian, Yonkpa said. He identified the slain Christian as 30-year-old Elisha Abbas Saku.
These incidents have marked increased violence against Christian communities in Plateau state over the past two decades.
A Christian community in Plateau state’s Riyom area came under attack by Fulani herdsmen on Tuesday (May 5) at about midnight, residents said.
“Our community of Rim is currently experiencing massive attacks from armed Fulani herdsmen,” resident Martha Dalyop said by phone at about 2 a.m. Wednesday (May 6). “The village has been surrounded, and shooting is being carried out indiscriminately.”
Herdsmen also attacked the Rim area on April 26, killing a pastor and three family members. The Rev. Ayuba Choji, his wife, Chundung Choji, and their two children, Cyril and Endurance, were killed when armed herdsmen invaded the Rim community at midnight, according to a statement from the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA).
“In the early hours of April 26, the Rev. Ayuba Choji, his wife Chungdun, and two of their children Cyril and Endurance were brutally slaughtered in their home at the Gako mission field by Fulani militia men,” ECWA leaders stated.
A funeral for the pastor and his family was held in Kwi village, where he had led a church, they said.
“They were not victims,” the ECWA statement read. “They were martyrs whose lives were claimed by the ongoing genocide against Christians in Nigeria. They died exactly where they chose to stand in the line of duty, lamps burning, voices lifted, refusing to abandon the post God had given them.”
More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
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.
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.
