Location of Plateau state in Nigeria. (Himalayan Explorer based on work by Uwe Dedering, Creative Commons)
ABUJA, Nigeria (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Fulani herdsmen in the early hours of Monday (June 22) killed more than 20 Christians in an attack in Plateau state, Nigeria, sources said.
The assailants raided predominantly Christian Kawel village, Bokkos County, at 2 a.m., area resident Dorcas Ishaya told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
“Fulani invaded Kawel community in the Mushere area around 2 a.m., killing more than 20 Christians, and many injured,” Ishaya said.
Resident Tongret Ezekiel said that after “Fulani terrorists” invaded Mushere District at 2 a.m., Nigerian security personnel were alerted but failed to respond until the morning daylight.
“Now that they have arrived, and their primary concern seems to be taking away the bodies of those killed by the terrorists,” Ezekiel told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The Nigerian authorities have failed to protect lives and properties of Christians when it mattered most, but now appear to be more interested in the dead than in the living.
“Please, the Nigerian government should leave us to mourn and bury our loved ones in peace. Over 20 Christians were killed in a single night. This is heartbreaking, devastating, and unacceptable.”
On June 16, “armed Fulani terrorists” ambushed and killed Samuel Alaket, a Christian community leader and the District Head of Gwande District in Bokkos County, according to the Bokkos Local Government Traditional Council.
“His Royal Highness Saf Samuel Alaket, the District Head of Gwande, had attended a meeting of the traditional council and was on his way back to his community when he was ambushed and shot dead by Fulani terrorists along Sha-Gwande Road,” the council said in a press statement. “This unfortunate incident has further deepened grief and concern within the Bokkos Christian community. We pray for the peaceful repose of his soul and extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, the Gwande District, the Bokkos Traditional Council, and the entire people of Bokkos.”
More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.
In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.
The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.
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- Location of Plateau state in Nigeria. (Himalayan Explorer based on work by Uwe Dedering, Creative Commons)
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