By Diana Chandler, Baptist Press. Reprinted with permission.
YELEWATA, Benue (BP)—June 17, 2025. The 500 Christians already had fled terrorism at home and found temporary shelter in storefronts transformed into living quarters in downtown Yelewata. But as they slept overnight June 13, men identified as militant Fulani attacked from multiple sides.
Shouting “Allahu Akhbar (God is great),” militants commenced an ungodly attack, using fuel to burn the small living quarters, shooting people and attacking with machetes any who tried to escape, multiple international religious liberty advocacy groups reported.
Within two hours, 200 were dead in what Aid to the Church in Need labeled the “worst killing spree” in the region to date.
Ukuma Jonathan Angbianbee, a local Catholic priest, told Aid to the Church in Need he survived by dropping to the floor as the gunshots began.
“What I saw was truly gruesome. People were slaughtered. Corpses were scattered everywhere,” the organization quoted Angbianbee. “When we heard the shots and saw the militants, we committed our lives to God. This morning, I thank God I am alive.”
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported “the attack followed several days of terrorist violence in Guma.”
The organization listed several lead-up attacks: on June 8 two farmers were killed and a third was wounded seriously working in their fields in Udei in the Nyiev Council Ward when gunman opened fire.
Then, “on June 11 two people were killed in a machete attack in Tse Ivokor, Unongu, and the following day five people were killed in an ambush on farmlands in Daudu as they were searching for the bodies of those who had been killed in the previous day’s attack,” CSW said in a press release.
The vast majority of those sheltered at the site had fled violence in Nasarawa and Benue, International Christian Concern reported.
Local law enforcement arrived hours too late, a leading priest in the Diocese of Makurdi told Aid to the Church in Need.
“Where were they the previous evening when we needed them?” the group quoted the priest. “This is by far (the) worst atrocity we have seen. There has been nothing even close.”
Local law enforcement managed to stave off an attempted attack on St. Joseph’s Church in Yelewata, where 700 displaced persons were sheltered, preceding the downtown Yelewata slaughter. Seeing the resistance, militants retreated to the second site that was unguarded.
Entire families were killed, including babies and the elderly, witnesses said.
‘A crisis of global conscience’
While initial reports indicated a death toll of 100, an investigation by the Diocese of Makurdi Foundation for Justice, Development and Peace found 200 people were killed, a total confirmed by Wissam al-Saliby, president of international religious freedom organization 21Wilberforce.
On the same night as the Yelewata attack, Fulani militants killed between two and five Nigerian soldiers at a military post near Daudu town, ICC reported, referencing Benue’s Leadership News as a source.
“Our tactical teams responded swiftly, and some of the attackers were neutralized,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Sewuese Edet told Leadership News, adding that several civilians were killed and wounded in the attack.
The Yelewata attack comes weeks after Palm Sunday and Easter attacks in Benue and Plateau that killed 240 Christians, many of them as they sheltered in a church.
“This is not just a Nigerian crisis—it is a crisis of global conscience,” al-Saliby noted in an email.
He said the organization had issued the following warning a decade ago in its report, “following a fact-finding mission to Nigeria. Tragically, the situation has only worsened.”
“If immediate action is not taken, religious minorities in northern Nigeria will continue to face policies and practices that seek to remove their very presence. Terrorist violence will further compound one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
“The accelerating aggression of Fulani militants in the Middle Belt, right in the heart of the country, will create one of the most significant security risks in West Africa—while solidifying religion as a primary identifier, further fracturing an already destabilized Nigeria,” al-Saliby noted their 2016 report read.
Yet today, “we are again bearing witness to devastating violence,” he noted, confirming the brutal nighttime murders, on June 13–14, of the nearly 200 internally displaced persons sheltering in a Catholic mission in Yelewata, Benue State.
Al-Saliby said 21Wilberforce “has been in close communication with Nigerian Christian leaders and secular human rights groups, all confirming that the security situation is deteriorating.”
He noted the team also received “an unpublished report from a trusted local leader detailing another massacre that predates this latest atrocity.”
Standing with Nigerian Christians
Nigerian law enforcement and national security long have been accused by Nigerians and members of the international community of inadequate or no intervention to stop militant and terrorist attacks against Christians and civilians.
Following the weekend’s attacks, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom renewed calls June 18 for the Department of State to designate Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern.
“The abhorrent violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the systematic, ongoing, and egregious attacks throughout Nigeria against Christians and Muslims are indications that government prevention efforts are failing and not protecting vulnerable religious communities,” commission Chair Vicky Hartzler said in a release.
“U.S. government foreign assistance to Nigeria should efficiently and effectively support efforts to protect religious freedom,” she noted.
More Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, Open Doors reports annually in its World Watch List of the 50 most difficult places for Christians to live, with 3,100 Christians killed there in 2024.
Yet, al-Saliby said: “21Wilberforce remains committed to long-term partnership. We are investing in and directing resources to empower local leadership in Nigeria to raise their voices, engage with their government, and represent their communities before international bodies.”
Attacks against Christians have escalated in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and nationwide. Attacks by radicalized Islamic ethnic Fulani militia are a main driver of violence there.
Fulani militants attack farming communities heavily populated by Christians, killing many hundreds, Open Doors reported, adding to attacks elsewhere in Nigeria by Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province, among others.
Fulani are predominantly Muslim and comprise numerous clans totaling millions in Nigeria and across the Sahel. Most do not hold extremist views.
“While international advocacy has often failed to produce sustained results, we believe that domestic Nigerian advocacy—led by courageous local leaders—is essential for lasting change,” al-Saliby said.
He asserted, “They must not stand alone.”
With additional reporting by Calli Keener. Editor’s note: the 8th, 9th and 10th paragraphs from the end were added when new information became available after the article was published.