In Benue State, in the heart of Nigeria, a new tragedy has struck the faithful of Christ. On the night of Friday, June 13 to Saturday, June 14, 2025, up to 200 Christians were brutally massacred by armed Islamists, in what Catholic missionaries on the ground are now calling the worst atrocity ever witnessed in this scarred region.
The carnage took place in Yelewata, in the Guma local government area. There, displaced Christian families, having already fled other atrocities by Fulani militias, were living as best they could in makeshift shelters set up within the local market itself. But that night, the assailants arrived armed, shouting "Allahu Akhbar", and methodically set fire to the structures where the refugees were sleeping. When the victims tried to flee, they were cut down with machetes or shot at point-blank range. The bodies, as local priests testify, were scattered everywhere.
Father Ukuma Jonathan Angbianbee, a priest of the parish, shared:
"When the shooting started, we entrusted our lives into God's hands. This morning, I give thanks to be alive. But what I saw is indescribable. People slaughtered like animals."
This massacre is not an isolated case. It is part of a long series of attacks perpetrated by radicalized armed Fulani groups against rural Christian communities in Nigeria, particularly in the so-called "Middle Belt", which is predominantly agricultural and Christian. Benue State has become its primary theater for several years.
The Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need, which reported the facts, speaks of a deliberate plan of ethno-religious cleansing. The Diocese of Makurdi, through its Justice, Development and Peace Foundation, gives the staggering figure of nearly 200 dead in this single attack. Amnesty International Nigeria, for its part, confirmed at least 100 dead and many wounded, most deprived of any medical assistance. Dozens of people remain missing.
The police, who had already intervened during the day to repel an attempted attack on St. Joseph's Church (which houses more than 700 displaced persons), were no longer there when the killers returned at nightfall. This detail, like so many others, fuels the anger of the inhabitants, left to fend for themselves.
Thousands of Christians once again find themselves homeless. Many have fled to neighboring villages or to the regional capital of Makurdi. This is not a new exodus: in the Gwer West area alone, still in Benue State, more than 100 people have been killed in the last three weeks, forcing 5,000 souls to flee.
The Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, addressed this tragedy during the Sunday Angelus prayer. The successor of Peter entrusted to prayer the victims of this "terrible slaughter", emphasizing that they were mostly "sheltered by the local Catholic mission." He had a particular word for the "rural Christian communities of Benue, incessant victims of hatred and violence."
It is important to recall that between November 2022 and November 2024, nearly 10,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria by Islamist groups, according to the Global Christian Relief report. Most of the victims are from rural areas, where the state no longer protects its citizens, and where Christian communities are seen as obstacles to an Islamist project of territorial conquest.
The Fulani people, widely dispersed across West Africa and numbering several million, are not in themselves monolithic. A large portion lives in peace. But an extremist fringe influenced by the jihadist ideologies of Boko Haram or the Islamic State has been violently targeting Christians for several years. And the deafening silence of Western powers in the face of these crimes only worsens the situation.
Catholic voices are increasingly rising to denounce a silent genocide, a plan of religious cleansing sustained by chaos, the inaction of the authorities, and the indifference of the world. The Church, however, will not be silent. We must all unite in prayer, in witness, and in action. For the blood of the African martyrs continues to flow, and it cries out to Heaven.