More than 210 Christians have been killed in a wave of coordinated attacks across several villages in Nigeria’s Plateau State, marking one of the deadliest episodes in the region’s recent history of ethno-religious violence.
According to local officials and community leaders, heavily armed assailants believed to be militants from nomadic herder groups stormed over 15 predominantly Christian communities over the span of three days. Homes were set ablaze, churches were destroyed, and survivors fled into the surrounding hills.
“This is not just a conflict over land or grazing routes. It is an extermination campaign,” said Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam, a Nigerian human rights advocate. “Our people are being hunted and slaughtered.”
Plateau State, part of Nigeria’s volatile Middle Belt, has long been a flashpoint for deadly clashes between Christian farming communities and predominantly Muslim Fulani herders. However, advocacy groups say the violence has taken on a more targeted and religious dimension in recent years, raising alarms about what some are now calling a slow-motion genocide.
The Nigerian government has condemned the attacks but has been widely criticized for its sluggish and often ineffective response. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu called for calm and promised to deploy additional security forces to the area, but local residents say protection often comes too late.
Aid organizations are struggling to reach the affected villages, where survivors are in urgent need of medical care, food, and shelter. “We are overwhelmed,” said Esther Bako of the Christian Aid Mission. “This is a humanitarian catastrophe.”
International observers, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, have repeatedly urged Nigeria to take more decisive action to prevent further atrocities and hold perpetrators accountable.
As mass burials take place and entire communities mourn, calls are growing louder for the international community to recognize the scale of the crisis and respond with urgency.
