The death toll in the Christian massacre in Yelwata village, Benue State, Nigeria, has surpassed 200. In the early hours of Friday, June 13, 2025, over 200 Christian villagers were slaughtered and burned alive by heavily armed Fulani jihadists in Yelwata, a farming community in Guma County. This horrific incident is part of a broader wave of targeted violence that has gripped central Nigeria in recent weeks. Yelwata, located just 7 km north of Makurdi, is a 98 percent Christian village 97 percent Catholic and 3 percent other denominations. The community also hosts Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who had earlier fled Fulani militia attacks from neighbouring towns.
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Eyewitness Account of the Massacre
Eyewitnesses recounted the night of terror to Genocide Watch, stating that the attack began around 10 p.m. on Thursday night. Over 40 gunmen, riding motorcycles in pairs and chanting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed the village. They opened fire on civilians, moved from house to house, set homes fire, and killed indiscriminately.
Reports indicate the attackers came from Rukubi in Doma, Keana, Obi, and other counties in neighbouring Nasarawa State. According to local youth leader Mton Matthias, the Fulani militants surrounded Yelwata, speaking Hausa and Fufulde, and began slaughtering people, primarily women, children, and displaced families who believed they had found safety there. Bodies continue to be discovered in surrounding bushes, and the death toll is still rising.
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Jihadist War & Barbaric Massacre- Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) released a statement expressing “deep anguish of soul” over “the utterly barbaric massacre of innocent civilians in Benue State.”
Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe of Makurdi described the violence as part of a broader jihadist war aimed at occupation and territorial conquest. “It is an Islamic war aimed at targeting predominantly Christian tribes,” he said, echoing earlier testimony he gave to the U.S. Congress on Christian persecution in Nigeria. He warned of an ongoing agenda to turn Nigeria into “an Islamic state in West Africa,” a campaign that began with Boko Haram’s jihadist insurgency in 2009.
Supporting this view, a report by the Catholic-inspired NGO Intersociety (International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law) revealed that Fulani groups and allied militias have occupied at least 950 locations in Nigeria’s predominantly Christian southeastern states, Abia, Enugu, Anambra, and Ebonyi, threatening about 40 percent of the region’s 1,940 communiIhyula
Humanitarian Crisis and Government Inaction- Rev. Fr. Remigius Ihyula
Rev. Fr. Remigius Ihyula, Director of the Justice, Development and Peace Foundation (JPDF), described a worsening humanitarian crisis in Yelwata. The village’s water sources have been contaminated, food supplies destroyed, and survivors remain trapped in fear. “This isn’t random violence,” he said. “It’s a coordinated campaign to permanently displace Christians from their ancestral lands.”
Fr. Ihyula also pointed to the role of Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State, as a staging ground for many attacks. “Successive Nasarawa governors have done nothing to stop this cross-border terrorism. Their silence is complicity.”
Nigeria: BREAKING – Fulani Islamist militants have again attacked Christians in the Middle Belt, this time in Benue. Christians in the area had reportedly been threated in recent days, prompting them to flee. The Islamists followed them in order to carry out their attack. Pray. pic.twitter.com/KaB6ShLC5L
— Christian Emergency Alliance (@ChristianEmerg1) January 19, 2024
David Onyillokwu Idah, Director of the International Human Rights Commission (IHRC), called the violence a systematic effort to erase the Tiv and Idoma peoples. “This is what the Nazis did to the Jews. It’s ethnic cleansing, step by step. First, they displace them. Then they come back and finish the job.”
According to Genocide Watch, more than 45,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria between 2009 and March 2022 by Islamic jihadist groups, including Fulani militants, Boko Haram, and ISWAP. The massacre in Yelwata adds yet another grim chapter to the ongoing crisis facing Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
