A DOZEN CHRISTIAN VILLAGES IN NIGERIA WIPED OUT IN FOUR-DAY KILLING SPREE
June 29, 2018 by Lindy Lowry in Africa, Stories of Persecution
At Open Doors, one of our core values is prayer–prayer for God’s people who face persecution and prayer for Damascus Road awakenings for those who persecute. Please join us in praying for Sub-Saharan Africa. The world’s second-largest continent–including 1.2 billion people, thousands of ethnic groups and 54 internationally recognized countries–is currently on fire with persecution. The widely reported story below chronicles an attack in Nigeria in June 2018. But the reports of persecution are ongoing from our teams working with churches and ministries in Africa. For example, late last week our team shared news of a recent attack on a largely Christian village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Please join us as we pray and work to strengthen the church in sub-Saharan Africa–to equip and empower God’s people to be light in the darkness.
Most of the victims were in their homes sleeping when the attacks began … when Muslim Fulani militant herdsmen began their killing spree in Nigeria that lasted four days, Thursday through Sunday evening and into Monday.
In only days, a dozen villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state were wiped out. The affected communities surround the city of Jos—known as the epicenter of Christianity in northern Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
According to our on-the-ground sources, as many as 200 Christians had been killed, however, some residents fear the death toll may be even higher, as more bodies are yet to be recovered, while others were burned beyond recognition. On Sunday, 75 of the victims were buried in a mass grave.
We are still gathering information about the violence, but the details we have from our sources on the ground so far reveal the scale and brutality of the attacks, in many cases more extensive than have been reported elsewhere:
120 people who were attending the funerals of an elderly member were hacked to death as they returned home.
In another attack, in Gana Ropp village, a pastor, Rev. Musa Choji, was killed, as were his wife and son.
In Gidin Akwati, the whole community was burned down. Local sources say that some of those displaced are still hiding in the bush, as they haven’t yet been able to find their way to a safe haven.
A pastor with the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) denomination, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons, said that following an attack on Saturday, his entire village was reduced to ashes, and more than 100 people lost their lives.
The ECWA pastor said more than 50 heavily armed Fulani herdsmen surrounded the village of Nghar, in Gashes district, at around 3:30 a.m. They burned down all the houses, as well as two churches. Only a few people were able to escape.
His wife’s family was decimated. The assailants killed 14 members of her family, including her mother and sister. Others who had come to visit them were also killed. In total, 27 people lost their lives in the same house. They were all burned to death. Only one person—his wife’s younger brother—survived, as he managed to escape through the roof.
World Watch Monitor reports that on the day of the attack in Nghar, only two soldiers and one policeman were in the village, but they reportedly ran for their lives when the herdsmen launched their attack.
ATTACKS WERE PEAK OF ONGOING VIOLENCE
Reportedly, the violence in the attacked areas has been happening for the last two weeks. Over the weekend, the violence reached a peak. Pastor Steve Kwol, chairman of the Pentecostal Federation of Nigeria for Plateau North, which includes the attacked areas, said that herdsmen were ambushing people going to their farms or traveling on their motorbikes.
Since Thursday, the herdsmen militants had launched “very serious attacks” on the whole communities, he said. Despite the current dusk-to-dawn curfew and the presence of military, the attacks are still o