Dozens of Christians Slain and Kidnapped in Benue State, Nigeria
Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, Benue state, Nigeria, testified of Fulani atrocities earlier than a U.S. Home panel on March 12, 2025. (Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information screenshot from YouTube)
ABUJA, Nigeria (Christian Day by day Worldwide–Morning Star Information) – Fulani assaults on predominantly Christian areas of Benue state, Nigeria have killed dozens of Christians since March 28, space sources mentioned.
In Otobi village, Otukpo County, herdsmen on the night of April 5 pressured 1000’s of residents to flee because the assailants killed three Christians and kidnapped dozens of others, mentioned Peter Ochekpa.
“The assault occurred at evening, because the herdsmen invaded the group and shot indiscriminately on the villagers who had already gone to sleep of their homes,” Ochekpa instructed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information. “This incident has pressured villagers to flee in numerous instructions into the bushes.”
Angbo Kennedy, a parliamentarian representing the world within the Benue State Home of Meeting, mentioned herdsmen have lately attacked different communities, together with Okpomaju, Okete and Asa settlements in Otukpo County.
“These herdsmen assaults have gotten too frequent and steadily,” Kennedy instructed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information.
On April 3, herdsmen attacked residents on the outskirts of Otukpo city, killing two Christians and kidnapping 13 others, mentioned space resident Johnson Daniel. A resident of Olena village within the Asa space, Agnes Oguche, mentioned herdsmen killed many different Christians in assaults there from March 28 to March 31.
“Olena group was below siege for 4 days, starting from Friday, 28 March to Monday, 31 March, with dozens of Christians killed and lots of different Christians kidnapped,” Oguche instructed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information.
Maxwell Ogiri, chairman of the Otukpo Native Authorities Council, mentioned the council had compiled detailed experiences on these assaults and despatched them to Benue state officers and safety companies.
“We’re hopeful that measures will probably be taken with the intention to nip within the bud these recurring assaults,” Ogiri instructed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information.
Edwin Ochia, president of an affiliation of Nigerian Christians dwelling in diaspora in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Europe, denounced ongoing herdsmen violence within the Otukpo space and different areas of Benue state.
“We within the diaspora condemn in sturdy phrases the deafening silence of Nigeria’s political leaders and safety companies over the continuing bloodshed in Otukpo and different components of Benue state,” Ochia mentioned in a press assertion. “It’s outrageous that whereas harmless residents are being slaughtered and whole villages sacked, these entrusted with the duty of defending lives and property proceed to look the opposite method.”
The perpetrators of those crimes are recognized, but safety companies that ought to be actively pursuing them are turning a blind eye, he mentioned.
“This negligence is nothing in need of complicity,” Ochia mentioned. “This reckless indifference from the best ranges of presidency is unacceptable and an insult to the victims and their grieving households. The Nigerian safety companies should get up from their slumber. Their failure to analyze, apprehend and neutralize these accountable for these killings is a dereliction of responsibility.”
Catherine Anene, spokesperson for the Benue State Police Command, instructed Christian Day by day Worldwide-Morning Star Information, “Law enforcement officials have been deployed to the affected areas and operation is ongoing in Otukpo.”
A Christian ministry to persecuted Christians in Nigeria, the Lay Trustworthy Belief Basis, said that Fulani herdsmen launched an unprovoked assault on the predominantly Christian group of Umogidi Itekpa final yr.
“The assaults comply with a repeated sample by the Fulani militia towards the indigenous Christian ethnic nationalities in Benue state,” mentioned the group’s Bosun Emmanuel in a press assertion. “This assault left 34 individuals useless and 4 in intensive remedy from deadly wounds. On the similar time, over 130 homes had been both burnt or vandalized. Because the mud settled from the most recent barbaric assault by the Fulanis, 30 wives realized their husbands had been no extra. They had been widows.”
Isaac Ikpa of the Benue stated-based Heart for Social Justice, Fairness and Transparency (CESJET) expressed concern over the alarming rise in herdsmen assaults within the state. Calling the response of the Nigerian authorities to incessant assaults by herdsmen on Christians within the state insufficient, he cited violence in Otukpo and surrounding communities.
“Over the previous few months, the area has witnessed a disturbing rise in violent incidents, together with murders, kidnappings, vandalism and threats of additional assaults,” Ikpa mentioned in a press assertion.
He cited the homicide of Chief Onche Akatu and the kidnapping of two others from his residence within the Asa 2 space on March 31; the killing of 5 individuals in Okpomoju group by suspected herdsmen earlier this yr; the homicide of Felicia Ochigbo within the Previous NTA space on March 30; and the homicide of a Benue Hyperlinks driver and the kidnapping of 14 passengers onboard on April 3 in Itobi.
“These incidents are amongst many others that underline the pressing want for motion,” Ikpa mentioned. “These steady assaults have created a local weather of concern, paralyzed financial actions, and severely disrupted group life, with ripple results on the nationwide economic system.”
Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, bishop of the Makurdi Diocese, testified earlier than the U.S. Home Overseas Affairs Committee on March 12, saying the violence is a part of a long-term Islamic agenda to homogenize the inhabitants “via a method to scale back and finally eradicate the Christian identification of half of the inhabitants.”
“This technique consists of each violent and nonviolent actions such because the exclusion of Christians from positions of energy,” Anagbe mentioned. “The raping of ladies, the killing and expulsion of Christians, the destruction of church buildings and farmlands of Christian farmers adopted by the occupation of such lands by the Fulani raiders, and likewise altering the names of those villages they’re taking on.”
Numbering within the tens of millions throughout Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise lots of of clans of many various lineages who don’t maintain extremist views, however some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the UK’s All-Occasion Parliamentary Group for Worldwide Freedom or Perception (APPG) famous in a 2020 report.
“They undertake a comparable technique to Boko Haram and ISWAP and show a transparent intent to focus on Christians and potent symbols of Christian identification,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have mentioned they consider herdsmen assaults on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Center Belt are impressed by their need to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it troublesome for them to maintain their herds.
Nigeria remained among the many most harmful locations on earth for Christians, based on Open Doorways’ 2025 World Watch Listing of the nations the place it’s most troublesome to be a Christian. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for his or her religion worldwide in the course of the reporting interval, 3,100 (69 %) had been in Nigeria, based on the WWL.
“The measure of anti-Christian violence within the nation is already on the most doable below World Watch Listing methodology,” the report said.
Within the nation’s North-Central zone, the place Christians are extra frequent than they’re within the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia assault farming communities, killing many lots of, Christians above all, based on the report. Jihadist teams equivalent to Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), amongst others, are additionally lively within the nation’s northern states, the place federal authorities management is scant and Christians and their communities proceed to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, based on the report. Abductions for ransom have elevated significantly lately.
The violence has unfold to southern states, and a brand new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged within the northwest, armed with superior weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL famous. 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 checklist of the 50 worst nations for Christians.
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