Nigeria (MNN) — A cluster of attacks on Christmas week kills nearly 50 people from Christian communities in Nigeria. A one-year-old baby and a 13-year-old child were among those slaughtered by Fulani herdsmen.
Unknown Nations’ Greg Kelley says, “A few dozen people were killed on Christmas Day simply for being followers of Jesus. It’s a pattern, unfortunately, that has just been a reoccurring theme now for several years across Nigeria.”
The Fulani herdsmen live in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority North, but they’re increasingly moving south to find better grazing land for their cattle.
(Photo courtesy of Unknown Nations)
“They target farms, and a lot of times these farms are owned by Christians,” Kelley explains. “It’s a very difficult thing to contain because there’s no assistance coming from security forces, and if it does come at all, it’s always after the fact.”
Christians grow weary of the never-ending bloodshed. Kelley says, “Christians and Muslims have coexisted for literally hundreds of years, and so the issue isn’t that they can’t coexist. The issue is the violence. You have all these IDP (internally displaced people) camps throughout the country filled with people who have lost everything.”
Please stand with believers in prayer for relief.
Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ last year, according to Open Doors.
“We need to be praying for the persecuted believers in Nigeria,” Kelley urges. “More Christians are killed simply for their faith in Christ than the rest of the world combined.”
Representative header photo, courtesy of Unknown Nations.
