Fulani herdsmen guided toward Christian leaders on Monday killed 28 Christians, including a pastor, in a raid on a village in Plateau state, Nigeria, sources said.
The Fulani terrorists attacked Kawel village, Bokkos County at about 2 a.m., said resident Jesse Peter Dukut.
“We were inside our houses when the Fulani herdsmen invaded our village,” Dukut said. “If anyone came out of their houses, they were shot at sight. And a sound from any of the houses in the village attracts shooting from the terrorists.”
Phone and telecom services were cut, keeping resident from calling any security agencies for help, he said.
“The attackers were speaking to each other in both Fulani and Hausa languages,” he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “We heard them even mentioning the names of some of our Christian leaders and directing some of them to hunt them down in their homes – an indication they were being guided during the attack by local Fulani herdsmen living in nearby Fulani villages. They killed my uncle and brothers. I narrowly escaped being shot.”
The Rev. Markus Nyam, pastor of Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), was among those killed along with members of his local church congregation in Kawel village, said resident Godswill Nuhu.
Church leaders in Bokkos issued a statement confirming the killing of the pastor and members of his congregation.
“We received with deep sadness the news of the death of Rev. Markus Nyam, who was among those who lost their lives in the recent attack in Bokkos,” they stated. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and the entire community during this difficult time. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace. Amen!”
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.
