Plateau :

Terrorists killed 160 people, many of whom were getting ready for church Christmas festivities, in coordinated attacks on primarily Christian districts in Plateau state in Nigeria. The attackers killed Rev. Solomon Gushe of the Baptist Church in Dares village together with nine members of his family. Most of the Christians killed were women, children, and the elderly. Hundreds of houses were demolished and church pastors were killed. This year, the violence has also spread to the southern region of the country, which has a Christian majority.

In a news release, Alfred Alabo, the Plateau State Police Command spokesman, said that the attackers targeted 12 villages in the Bokkos LGA on Sunday night.

Plateau Gov. Caleb Mutfwang said that these stupid, senseless, and unprovoked acts must stop. Christian leaders think the attacks are motivated by their desire to annex Christian areas and impose Islam because they are finding it harder to maintain their herds due to desertification. Locals refer to the attackers as "bandits," a colloquial term for various criminal groups. This comprises ethnic Fulani herders facing a drought and a shortage of land for their livestock. Some of the mostly Muslim attackers are reportedly mercenaries from Chad or Niger. They ride motorcycles and are well-armed with sophisticated weapons that they purchased from criminal forces outside of Nigeria.

These attackers have been active in northern Nigeria for over 10 years, but they have also spread to other states, including several in southern Nigeria, like Plateau and Benue. Observers think that some of the assaulting criminal groups include elements of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, as well as a faction affiliated with the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they think the attacks by herdsmen on Christian communities in the Middle Belt are motivated by their desire to annex Christian areas and impose Islam because they are finding it harder to maintain their herds due to desertification.

With 5,014, Nigeria topped the global total of Christians killed in 2022 because of their faith, as per Open Doors' 2023 World Watch List report. It also had the greatest number of homes and businesses targeted for religious reasons, and it ranked first in the world for Christians kidnapped (4,726), forced marriages, sexual assault and harassment, and physical and mental violence. Nigeria had the second-highest number of church attacks and internally displaced persons, the same as the year before. Nigeria rose to its highest-ever rating of sixth place on the 2023 World Watch List of nations where it is hardest to be a Christian, up from No. 7 the year before.

The WWL report said, "military groups such as the Fulani, Boko Haram, ISWAP, and others launch raids on Christian communities, raping, killing, maiming, and kidnapping for ransom or sexual slavery." The violence has also spread to the southern region of the country, which has a Christian majority, this year.

Christians' rights are violated without consequence since Nigeria's government persistently refutes that this is religious persecution. The majority of Muslim Fulani people, who number in the millions throughout Nigeria and the Sahel, are made up of hundreds of clans from various lineages. While most Fulani do not subscribe to extremist ideologies, some do, as the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report. "They intend to target Christians and powerful symbols of Christian identity, and they adopt a strategy akin to that of Boko Haram and ISWAP," the APPG study said.