Fulani herdsmen on Monday (March 10) killed at least six Christian villagers in central Nigeria after stabbing another to death the prior day because he objected to them grazing their cattle on his property, sources said.
The assailants who invaded predominantly Christian Farin Dutse village, in Nasarawa state’s Nasarawa County, on Monday also set homes ablaze, said area resident Esau Ezekiel.
“Many Christian villagers have been killed, six corpses have so far been recovered, and many houses set ablaze by rampaging Fulani herdsmen after they attacked our village,” Ezekiel told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
The herdsmen attacked at about 3 a.m. as residents were sleeping, he said.
The previous day (March 9), villagers were attending a church worship service when a herdsman led his cattle onto a farm belonging to a Christian, Ezekiel said.
“The herdsman was spotted cutting down branches from one of the mango trees on the farm and feeding his cattle with the mango tree leaves,” he said. “The farmer asked him to lead his cattle out of the farm, but instead of complying with the instructions of the farmer to stop his cattle from destroying crops on the farm, the herdsman stabbed the Christian farmer to death.”
The herdsman led the other Fulanis in the early morning attack on Monday, Ezekiel said. He identified those slain as Friday Danladi, Simeon Madaki, Ayawu Senior, Sunday Wa’azu, Vincent Sunday, Taimako Senior and Filibus Jatau.
Wounded in the attack were Christians Samaniya Wa’azu, Vincent Ezekiel and Johnson Maikasuwa, he said.
The Nasarawa State Police Command confirmed the names and number of Christians killed in Monday’s attack, saying the corpses were identified as those of Simeon Madaki, Ayawu Senior, Sunday Wa’azu, Vincent Sunday, Taimako Senior and Filibus Jatau.
Ramhan Nansel, spokesman for the Nasarawa State Police, said in a statement that the three injured victims were taken to a medical center for treatment.
“Some houses, shops, motorcycles and a car were also vandalized during the attack,” Nansel said “To ensure law and order, the area has been reinforced with personnel from the Mobile Police of 69 PMF Toto, alongside other police operatives and the military, who are currently patrolling the vicinity.”
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.
Nigeria remained among the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,100 (69 percent) were in Nigeria, according to the WWL.
“The measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology,” the report stated.
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.
Nigeria ranked seventh on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 worst countries for Christians.
