On October 14, 2025, militants attacked Christian villages in Plateau State’s Barkin Ladi and Bokkos areas, leaving at least a dozen worshippers and villagers dead as survivors counted the cost of another night of terror. Reports from observers on the ground put the toll in the low teens — numbers may vary as families bury their dead and communities mourn — but the brutality is undeniable.
Eyewitnesses say the gunmen struck after nightfall, sweeping through settlements like Rawuru, Tatu and nearby villages, opening fire on people gathered for evening prayers and burning homes and crops in a calculated attempt to destroy livelihoods. Livestock were stolen and farmland ravaged, a familiar pattern that shows these are not random criminal acts but coordinated campaigns meant to terrorize Christian farmers into fleeing their ancestral lands.
Local reporting describes attackers shouting religious slogans as they struck, ambushing travelers and overrunning small communities in a cold, efficient operation that left terrified survivors hiding in the bush. Churches and mission centers were specifically targeted, which should strip away any pretense that this is merely criminality or a pastoral dispute and point to an ugly, sectarian agenda.
For too long the victims’ warnings have been treated as background noise while politicians and security chiefs swap statements. Community leaders say they begged authorities for protection and were ignored, and even when the Joint Task Force rushed to “debunk” some videos, the message from the ground was the same: people were left vulnerable and paying with their lives. The pattern of delay, deflection, and denial is a scandal — local officials must be held accountable for failing to protect their citizens.
This massacre is not an isolated spike but part of a steady, deadly campaign across Plateau and other Middle Belt states that has seen hundreds killed and thousands displaced over recent years, a crisis international observers have repeatedly documented. When international outlets and human-rights groups tally scores of killings and mass burnings, we should stop treating these tragedies as distant footnotes and start treating them as the ongoing humanitarian disaster they are.
As conservatives who believe in religious liberty and the sanctity of life, we must call out the moral bankruptcy of a world that watches Christians slaughtered and treats their pleas as a political nuisance. Our concern isn’t empty grandstanding — it’s a demand for justice, protection, and consequences: robust investigations, targeted sanctions against complicit actors, and humanitarian support for survivors who have lost everything. The United States and free nations should stand squarely with persecuted believers and press Nigeria’s leaders to stop the slide into lawlessness and religious cleansing.
Pray for the families in Plateau State, and support the charities and ministries risking everything to get food, shelter, and medical care to those displaced by the violence. The world’s silence has emboldened killers before; it cannot be allowed to do so again. Americans who value faith, freedom and human dignity should insist their leaders do more than offer condolences — they must act to protect the vulnerable and punish the perpetrators.
