Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 /
17:01 pm
Islamist Fulani militants swooped into the town of Yelewata in Nigeria’s Benue state and killed up to 200 Nigerian Christians on Friday in what international aid organizations are calling the “worst killing spree” in the region yet.
The attackers targeted Christians living as internally displaced people in the June 13 attack, setting fire to buildings where families were taking shelter and assaulting with machetes anyone who attempted to flee, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
“Militants stormed in, shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘God is great’), before killing people at will,” ACN reported, adding that the attackers “used fuel to set fire to the doors of the displaced people’s accommodation before opening fire in an area where more than 500 people were asleep.”
“What I saw was truly gruesome. People were slaughtered. Corpses were scattered everywhere,” Father Ukuma Jonathan Angbianbee, a local parish priest, told ACN shortly after the attack.
The priest, along with several other witnesses, affirmed that the Fulani herdsmen were behind the massacre. The militants attacked the town from several angles and used heavy rain as cover, he noted.
Angbianbee narrowly escaped being killed himself, dropping to the floor when the militants began firing shots. “When we heard the shots and saw the militants, we committed our lives to God,” he continued. “This morning, I thank God I am alive.”
The militants attempted first to attack a local parish, St. Joseph’s Church in Yelewata, where 700 displaced people were being sheltered earlier in the evening. However, after local law enforcement fought off the initial attack, the militants moved on to the town’s market square, where they carried out the brutal assault on several buildings that had been repurposed into housing for displaced people.
Although initial reports estimated nearly 100 deaths, data collected by the Diocese of Makurdi Foundation for Justice, Development, and Peace found that a total of 200 people were killed.
“The death toll makes it the single-worst atrocity in the region, where there has been a sudden upsurge in attacks and increasing signs that a concerted militant assault is underway to force an entire community to leave,” ACN stated.
Another clergy member, identified as a leading priest in the Diocese of Makurdi, criticized Nigerian law enforcement for failing to arrive on the scene until the next morning. “Where were they the previous evening when we needed them?” he asked, adding: “This is by far [the] worst atrocity we have seen. There has been nothing even close.”
“Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty,” Pope Leo XIV said during his Angelus address on Sunday.
“Most of the victims were internal refugees who were hosted by a local Catholic mission,” he lamented, adding that he would be praying for “security, peace, and justice,” especially for “rural Christian communities of the Benue state who have been relentless victims of violence.”
During Lent and Holy Week, Fulani herdsmen killed more than 170 Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, with 72 of the deaths reported in the Benue state alone during the Easter Triduum between April 18–20.
The ongoing attacks continue to raise serious concerns about religious persecution and government inaction in the West African nation.
Madalaine Elhabbal is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency based at EWTN’s Washington, D.C., bureau.
