Hundreds of Christian widows in Nigeria’s Plateau State are putting their lives back together after losing husbands, homes and livelihoods to violence, with a mission worker describing how many continue to draw strength from their faith despite profound trauma.
For the last eight months, Dominique, a Christian mission worker from Surrey, has been based in Jos, helping vulnerable communities across Nigeria’s Plateau state through a local Christian ministry, City Ministries, linked to SIM.
Her work has brought her into contact with widows, displaced Christians, women recovering from addiction, orphans and children rejected by their communities.
She is based in the Miango area, which is home to more than 500 women. It is a rural community in Plateau State where repeated attacks on Christian farming villages have left numerous women without husbands or homes.
Some survivors have suffered gunshot wounds, machete injuries and burns, while others have witnessed husbands or children being killed and seen homes and farms destroyed.
According to SIM, some have lost access to their late husbands’ property, while others have been left unable to afford food, school fees or medical care.
Dominique’s connection with the widows was established through Gastor, a local Irigwe Christian involved with City Ministries.
During outreach visits, teams worship with the women, pray with them, wash their feet and give them new leather sandals in a gesture modelled on Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.
The ministry helps with medical costs and school fees, provides practical assistance to older widows, and helps younger women earn a living and rebuild their homes.
It also offers trauma support and arranges Christian camps for women and their children.
For many widows, the impact of the attacks continues long after the immediate violence has ended. However, what has particularly struck Dominique is the way many of the widows respond when asked how Christians elsewhere can pray for them.
Rather than focusing first on material needs, she said they often ask for prayer that their faith will remain strong.
“They always ask for prayer for their faith,” she said. “That Christ would give them the strength to forgive when it gets hard, and that they would lean on him to help them navigate their daily trauma.”
Many of the women told Dominique simply knowing they are remembered is a source of comfort.
For Dominique, witnessing their faith has been deeply affecting
“It can feel like there’s no justice. That people are being left to suffer," she told SIM.
Yet she said the widows’ continued reliance on Christ has strengthened her own understanding of prayer.
“Prayer is our greatest weapon,” she said, adding that Christians have a responsibility “to share in the joys and suffering of our brothers and sisters”.
The situation in Plateau State forms part of a much wider security crisis affecting communities across northern and central Nigeria, which has garnered international attention.
A recent Open Doors report found that extremist-linked abductions more than doubled in the final three months of 2025, rising by 153% compared with the same period a year earlier.
The report also recorded a sharp rise in civilian deaths and warned that violence associated with militant Fulani groups had become a major driver of killings and kidnappings.
Separate research published earlier this year by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa recorded 28,551 Christian deaths between October 2019 and September 2025, compared with 13,224 Muslim deaths, with much of the violence attributed to militant Fulani groups and other unidentified armed groups.
UN experts have also raised “grave concern” over the impact of insecurity on Christian women and girls, particularly the risks of killing, abduction, sexual violence and forced marriage.
Against that backdrop, Dominique said the widows of Miango continue to face grief, poverty and uncertainty while trying to rebuild their lives.
For her, their perseverance is a reminder that faith does not remove suffering but can sustain people through it.
SIM is asking Christians to pray for the widows’ continued faith and healing, for justice to be done and peace to take root in Plateau State, for reconciliation between Christian and Muslim communities, and for churches to continue supporting those affected “through practical care, encouragement and prayer".
