Joel Verdkamp, head of international communications at Christian Solidarity International, has issued a warning of a horrifying attack on Nigerian followers.
“What just unfolds is the worst attack we’ve seen in Nigeria in almost a year and a half,” Veldkamp told CBN News. “My colleague arrived in Joss, central Nigeria on Saturday, April 12th. Since then, there have been attacks on Christian villages in the area every night.”
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He said he believes that at least 126 people have been killed and 7,000 people have been kicked out of their homes.
“It’s a very serious attack and one of the biggest attacks we’ve seen in the area in a long time and we’re coming on Holy Week,” Veldkamp said. “The worst massacre was actually Palm Sunday. Fifty-six people were killed in the village by Fulani Islamic jihadists.”
Veldkamp explained some of the horrors his colleagues were watching on the ground after meeting “slaughter survivors.”
“He said most of the people there were hurting,” he said. “The attackers actually use machetes to kill people and hurt people. He met a seven-year-old boy named Stephen, whose whole family was killed. His father was shot and killed.
Steven was hit in the neck with a machete and was found dead by a terrorist and later by a relative who took him to the hospital.
“Even after a few days he was still screaming and vomiting from the pain of his wounds,” Woldkamp said.
Nigeria has been a hotbed of fear in recent years, despite nearly half of the country being Christians. Veldkamp explained that the ruling military rank was always Muslim and was from the Fulani ethnic groups.
“What’s going on now is that this huge part of Nigeria is called the highly fertile central belt, with hundreds of different ethnic groups living there, almost all of which are Christians and farmers,” he said. “And over the past six years, we have seen systematic attacks on the villages by Fulani militias at least.
Veldkamp continued. “So we’re looking at a slow process of filming a once-Christian area and turning it into a Muslim area. For the militia itself, they’ve got land, they’ve got their wealth, they’ve probably got their money.”
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As reported by CBN News, Nigeria has been consistently discovered by Watchdog as the most deadly nation for its followers.
“We have recorded the murders of around 10,000 Christians, mainly in the north and central parts of the country,” Isaac Six, Advocacy Advocacy Superintendent (GCR) of Global Christian Relief, told CBN News earlier this year. “And again, it is being led by systemic violence committed and led by groups such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa and subsequently the armed groups.”
Ultimately, Isaac said that American Christians need to understand the extent of their fear.
“American churches really have to hear how horrifying some of these stories are,” he said. “It’s not just violence. It’s not just murder. It’s cruel atrocities. And frankly, the church has to wake up to some of this. Only a small portion of American believers even recognize what’s going on.”
Other persecution trackers have also extensively documented the severity of the issue. Open Doors World Watchlist 2025 placed Nigeria in the rankings of countries where anti-Christian persecution and discrimination is the worst.
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