No one has claimed the latest attack in Plateau State. The killings have renewed a fierce debate over whether Christians are being deliberately targeted.
By EEW Magazine Online News Editors
The Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations in Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, Nigeria. (Photo: Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo/X)
Less than two weeks after standing beside a mass grave to mourn members of his congregation, the Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo learned that four more people had been killed near his church in Nigeria’s Plateau State. On Saturday, the pastor, who has become one of the loudest voices accusing armed Fulani militants of targeting Christians, took his grief to social media and directed it at Washington.
He renewed his appeal to the United States government and the international community to intervene in the killings that keep striking communities across his corner of central Nigeria.
“I am heartbroken again. How many more tears must I shed before the world hears our cry?” Dachomo wrote on X. “We are not asking for sympathy alone; we are asking for meaningful intervention to protect innocent lives.”
Who carried out the killings remains unknown, and that question sits at the center of Nigeria’s crisis and of Washington’s pressure on Abuja. No group has claimed the attack, and the gunmen have not been identified. Many of the communities hit in recent months are predominantly Christian. Dachomo and other church leaders accuse Fulani militants of deliberately targeting Christians.
Nigeria’s government rejects the claim that Christians are singled out. President Bola Tinubu has said that portraying Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect the country’s reality.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Nigerian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In a May 8 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal advisory body, said armed Fulani militants have carried out some of the deadliest attacks on religious communities in Nigeria. The commission estimated about 30,000 militants among a Fulani population of roughly 14.5 million. It also found that the violence stems from overlapping motives and has killed Muslims as well as Christians.
Dachomo, regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, did not name the victims or say where they died. Nigerian outlets reported that gunmen killed four people Thursday night in Sabon Angwa, which The News Chronicle placed about a mile from his church. Their identities have not been independently established. The News Chronicle and Daily Trust also reported a fifth death in nearby Rakung, which police have not confirmed.
Accounts put the attack between about 7:20 p.m. and 8 p.m., according to Premium Times, Vanguard and Daily Trust. That was more than an hour into a 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew the state imposed on Barkin Ladi, Bokkos and Mangu on Sept. 21, which residents say was in force.
“They were shooting at anything they saw,” resident Bulus Jok told Vanguard.
Warnings came first. Jok said an alert reached authorities the day before. At 5:19 p.m. Thursday, Dalyop Solomon Mwantiri, president of the Berom Youth Moulders-Association, issued a security alert that armed groups were mobilizing in Barkin Ladi and neighboring Riyom. What authorities did with those warnings is unclear. Reporters could not reach Plateau police spokesman Alfred Alabo for comment, Leadership reported.
Alfred Alabo, spokesman for the Plateau State Police Command. (Photo: Alfred Alabo/Facebook)
The attack came two weeks after gunmen killed four volunteer guards shortly before midnight on Oct. 16 in Shurum, another Barkin Ladi village, Blueprint reported. Dachomo led their burial, and Christian media outlets circulated video of him weeping at the graveside.
Dachomo says his outspokenness has made him a target. In July, gunmen killed nine people, including an infant, in two villages in Riyom, ThisDay reported. Dachomo said the dead were his relatives, that the attackers asked for him by name and that he later received a letter vowing to kill him. The U.S. State Department condemned the killing of his relatives. His account has not been independently verified, and it remains unclear whether last week’s attack was aimed at him.
“Who can guarantee that tomorrow I will not be the one lying in a grave while my congregation gathers to mourn me?” he wrote Saturday. He asked what happens “when the shepherd is constantly forced to bury the very people he was called to care for,” adding that “our only option left is to fight for survival.”
The religious dimension of the violence is what drew Washington in. President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations on Oct. 31, 2025. The two governments have since held working-group talks on security and religious freedom.
On Sept. 28, the State Department pledged to keep working with Nigeria to protect Christians in the Middle Belt and urged it to “defend the Barkin Ladi communities in particular.”
Washington had not publicly responded to Dachomo’s latest appeal as of publication. Dachomo vowed to keep speaking for his people despite the danger. He wrote that he does not know “how many more funerals this broken heart can endure.”
