Dozens Of Christians Murdered In New Wave Of Muslim Terror In Nigeria
A priest coming back from a memorial service for two slain clergymen shot and injured. A farmer gunned down on his own farm. Three members of a family killed, and the mother left seriously injured.
They are just three examples of the “horror” people are enduring in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, according to a local priest.
This past weekend, a series of brutal attacks on communities left at least 36 people dead, with several others injured or abducted, according to reports received by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) from the Diocese of Makurdi.
The wave of violence, attributed by local sources to militant members of the Fulani herder community, took place between May 24-26, across several villages in Benue State. Victims include civilians, a police officer, and individuals targeted in what appear to be coordinated assaults on farming settlements.
The first incident occurred on May 24 in Tse Orbiam, Gwer West Local Government Area (LGA), where Father Solomon Atongo of Jimba Parish was shot in the leg upon returning from a memorial service for two priests killed in 2018.
Ori Hope Emmanuel, of the Diocese’s Foundation for Justice, Development, and Peace, stated: “On the evening of his return from a memorial service held in honor of two Catholic priests killed in 2018, Father Solomon Atongo of Jimba Parish was shot in the left leg by armed assailants identified as Fulani jihadists. The two passengers accompanying him were abducted by the attackers. Father Atongo is currently receiving medical treatment.”
At the same time, a local farmer, who had just concluded his day’s work, was reportedly shot and killed on his farm.
In a statement, Father Oliver Ortese, Chairman of the International Advisory Board for the Makurdi Diocese, criticized the security forces for failing to intervene in the attack: “There is a military post where this incident happened, where the Nigerian army personnel are kept by the government. This has left many questions on our minds. Were the soldiers asleep while these shootings were going on?”
The violence escalated the following day when 20 people were killed in Aondona, also in Gwer West LGA. Aondona is the native village of the Bishop of Makurdi, Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe. The heavily armed attackers “reportedly opened fire indiscriminately, resulting in civilian casualties and triggering widespread panic and confusion,” said Ori Hope Emmanuel. “Many residents fled their homes in search of safety.” The priests and religious sisters who live in Aondona managed to escape to Taraku, a nearby village, where many of the survivors of the tragedy have found asylum in the Catholic Church of St. Patrick.
Family devastated
On the same day, three members of a family — a father, his teenage son, and a two-year-old child — were killed in Yelewata Village, Guma LGA. The wife sustained serious injuries. The attack followed the brutal beating of a 67-year-old farmer and the destruction of his cassava farm.
Further attacks on May 26 saw five more lives lost in Tse Orbiam and six others in Ahume, Gwer West LGA. Ms. Emmanuel reported that the assailants “indiscriminately shot at individuals, resulting in multiple fatalities, including the death of a Mobile Police Officer on special assignment in the area.”
A final attack that day occurred on the Naka-Adoka Road in Gwer West, where armed men opened fire on both residents and travelers, injuring six and killing one.
Father Ortese condemned the wider impact of these repeated attacks on local communities: “They are creating humanitarian crises, as those who survive are moved into camps where they become beggars to seek out a living. You cannot imagine the reality we live in here. This is horror. This is terror.”
Conflicts between nomadic herders and settled farming communities have been a persistent issue in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, with complex root causes, including competition for land and water, and entangled ethnic, political, and religious tensions. From this toxic brew emerge Fulani terrorists – a minority among the 12 to 16 million Fulani people in Nigeria.
Aid to the Church in Need coordinates Catholic charitable works in various parts of the world.