The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is amplifying its call for the U.S. State Department to target Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) following the slaughter June 13 of 200 Christians in a three-hour killing spree by a nomadic group of militant Islamists.
Heavily armed Fulani herdsmen attacked Christian villagers in Yelwata, a farming community in Guma County, Benue State, over two days.
Micheel Odeh James with Truth Nigeria told CBN News that Benue State is a predominantly Christian region, and Yelwata was a settlement for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or people who fled previous Fulani militant attacks in neighboring towns.
“We are about six to seven million Nigerians living in Benue, and over 97% of them are Christians.” James said. “They are Baptist, they are Methodists, they are Catholics. Militants set fire to their buildings as people slept, and attacked with machetes anyone who tried to flee.”
He described the scene as a gruesome “genocidal massacre.”
“(It was) not just slaughtering, not just macheting, (but) they locked some people up … and then doused them with gasoline and then set them ablaze,” James said. “Babies were burned.”
For the second consecutive month, USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler is urgently calling on the U.S. government to label Nigeria as a CPC. “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,” Hartzler said.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agrees. “America must use its influence to protect Christians and others being targeted by Islamists,” he said “The U.S. government should redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and sanction the Nigerian government.”
Following the latest violence against Christians in Nigeria, Aid to the Church in Need has reported that police were able to stop the attackers in one region as they tried to storm Yelewata’s St. Joseph’s Church, where 700 people lived. The jihadists then turned to the town’s market square, where they reportedly 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 slept.
One eyewitness told Genocide Watch that 40 gunmen stormed the village on motorcycles in pairs, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” and firing at people indiscriminately.
“They came from Rukubi in Doma, Keana, Obi, and other counties in Nasarawa State,” said Mton Matthias, a local youth leader. “They surrounded Yelwata, speaking Hausa and Fufulde, and began slaughtering people—mostly women, children, and displaced families who thought they had found safety here. We’re still finding bodies in the bushes. The death toll is rising every hour.”
International religious freedom organization CSW continues to call on the Nigerian government to address the violence, which has increased against Christian farmers in Benue and elsewhere in Nigeria.
“It’s unfortunate that Benue, once touted as the food basket of the nation, is grappling with hunger due to the inability of its people to till their farms,” said CSW CEO Yunusa Nmadu, former general secretary of the Evangelical Church Winning All in Nigeria. “I urge the (Nigerian) federal government to, as a matter of urgency, move from mere rhetoric and perfunctory condemnation to a sincere, committed, and single-minded determination to halt the killings not only in Benue but in other states across the nation, which are bleeding from the menace of armed herdsmen.”
Jihadists have killed more than 5,700 in Benue since 2011, CSW said, based on numbers collected by the Benue NGO Network, with more than 150,000 people displaced. In June alone, at least 6,500 people were displaced from the state, with the International Organization for Migration tracking 2,843 arrivals from Benue at sites for Internally Displaced Persons in just one week in February.
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. Nationwide, about 62,000 Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria since the year 2000, according to Genocide Watch.
Photo: unsplash.com