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At least 100 Christians were brutally killed in Yelewata, Nigeria. Pope Leo condemned the massacre, urging justice, security, and peace for the nation’s suffering Christian communities.

More than 100 men, women, and children were brutally murdered overnight in Yelewata, a predominantly Christian village in Nigeria’s Benue State, in what observers are calling one of the deadliest attacks in the region this year.

The massacre occurred between late Friday and the early hours of Saturday, 14 June, with many of the victims burned alive inside their homes — some of them sheltering in a local Catholic mission.

Amnesty International Nigeria confirmed the attack on Saturday, urging authorities to act immediately. “The horrifying killing of over 100 people by gunmen that invaded Yelewata shows the security measures government claims to be implementing in the state are not working,” the group stated in a post on X.

Pope Leo condemned the killings during his Sunday Angelus message in Rome, offering prayers for the victims of what he described as a “terrible massacre” and calling for “security, justice, and peace” for Nigeria. “I am thinking in particular of the rural Christian communities of the Benue State who have been relentless victims of violence,” the Pope said.

The victims included many internally displaced people, already fleeing previous attacks, who had sought refuge in the Catholic-run compound. Videos and images circulating on social media show charred homes, blackened corpses, and smouldering ruins in the aftermath.

Pope Leo prays for the victims of a “terrible massacre” in Benue State, Nigeria.

Around 200 people were “brutally killed” in Yelwata, in the Guma Local Government Area on the night of the 13th/14th June, the Pope said, most of them internally displaced persons “sheltered by the… pic.twitter.com/gOZw8Ny0L2

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) June 15, 2025

‘Burnt Beyond Recognition’

The rights group described the Yelewata attack as one of the most severe in recent memory. “Many families were locked up and burnt inside their bedrooms. So many bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” Amnesty reported.

Local reports and eyewitness accounts indicate that dozens remain missing, and hundreds have been left wounded — many without access to emergency medical care. Graphic footage from the scene, though difficult to verify in entirety, depicts widespread destruction of property and life, consistent with previous attacks in the region.

Police spokesperson Udeme Edet confirmed that an attack took place but did not provide an official death toll, stating, “We are still assessing the situation on ground.”

Benue State Governor Hyacinth Alia, a Catholic priest-turned-politician, dispatched a state delegation to Yelewata. A spokesperson from the governor’s office called the killings “deeply heartbreaking,” vowing justice for the families affected. “This act of terror will not go unanswered,” the spokesperson added.

Benue, often called the “food basket of the nation,” has become a focal point of Nigeria’s worsening internal conflict. Most of the state’s population is Christian, and many of the victims of such attacks are subsistence farmers and villagers who rely on the land for survival.

A Pattern of Violence and Official Inaction

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the Yelewata massacre, the killings bear similarities to previous attacks involving Fulani herdsmen, who frequently clash with farming communities across Nigeria’s central and northern states.

The conflict is often framed in ethnic or economic terms, but many Christian communities in the Middle Belt region see the violence as increasingly targeted and religious in nature. Attacks regularly occur during Christian worship services or in overwhelmingly Christian rural villages, often without clear provocation.

The herder-farmer conflict dates back decades but has intensified in recent years. Fulani herders claim legal rights to historic grazing routes granted in a 1965 law. However, farmers — many of them Christian — say their lands and livelihoods are being destroyed and occupied with impunity.

Amnesty International criticised the Nigerian federal government, warning that the continued bloodshed could trigger a humanitarian crisis. “The Nigerian authorities’ failure to stem the violence is costing people’s lives and livelihoods, and without immediate action, many more lives may be lost,” the group warned in a Facebook statement.

The group further noted that the violence is “forcing people to flee their homes and may lead to food shortages,” given that many of the victims are farmers whose land is now unusable or too dangerous to access.

The Yelewata attack is not an isolated incident. In May, 20 people were killed in Benue’s Gwer West area in a similarly styled assault. In April, at least 40 died in Plateau State. Many Christian communities feel abandoned by their government and left to rely on church networks and international prayer support.

At the Vatican, Pope Leo’s address placed the Benue massacre alongside ongoing violence in Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East — a stark reminder of the global scale of suffering. But for many Nigerian Christians, the silence from national leaders remains most deafening.

Nearly 18 months ago, Islamist militants massacred almost 300 Christians during coordinated Christmas attacks, which observers warned was part of a broader jihadist effort to purge Christians and establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.

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Image courtesy of Unsplash.