Fulani Militants Kill Dozens of Christians in Nigeria's Plateau State, Including a Pastor Hunted by Name

What Happened in Kawel

Gunmen attacked Kawel village in Bokkos County, Plateau State, Nigeria in the late night and early morning hours of June 21-22. The death toll varies by source: International Christian Concern reported 22 killed; Christian Daily International put the number at 28; the Daily Wire, citing Christian Daily International, also reported 28. CBN News, citing reports from Mushere in Plateau State, reported 22. The variation likely reflects different community counts in the hours after the attack.

All sources agree on the core facts. Attackers identified by residents as Fulani militants moved through Kawel with AK-47 rifles, firing into homes. Telecom services were cut before the assault began, according to resident Jesse Peter Dukut, speaking to Christian Daily International. Anyone who stepped outside was shot.

"We were inside our houses when the Fulani herdsmen invaded our village," Dukut told Christian Daily International. "If anyone came out of their houses, they were shot at sight."

A Pastor Hunted Down

Rev. Markus Nyam, pastor of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), was among those killed. According to International Christian Concern, Nyam was shot outside his residence. His wife survived by taking cover after hearing the gunfire and only later discovered her husband was dead.

Dukut told Christian Daily International that the gunmen were heard calling out the names of specific Christian leaders and directing others to locate them in their homes, suggesting inside knowledge of the community. "They killed my uncle and brothers," he said. "I narrowly escaped being shot."

Church leaders in Bokkos issued a statement confirming Nyam's death. "We received with deep sadness the news of the death of Rev. Markus Nyam," the statement read, according to Christian Daily International.

Hospital Targeted, Pregnant Woman Fled

International Christian Concern reported that a medical doctor was specifically hunted during the attack. Gunmen searched his residence first, then located him at a local hospital, where they killed him along with five patients receiving treatment. A pregnant woman who had come to deliver her baby escaped through a rear exit while her husband, who accompanied her, was killed. She later gave birth safely after reaching safety.

Open Doors U.K., cited by the Daily Wire, confirmed at least one pregnant woman was among the dead in the Kawel attack. The figures may reflect different individuals or different stages of the same account.

Bishop Ayuba Matawal, a church leader in Bokkos, said police did not arrive until after daylight despite the attack starting around 11 p.m. or 2 a.m., depending on the account. The Daily Wire reported that Matawal said the delayed response "left the defenseless community entirely at the mercy" of the attackers.

A Second Attack the Same Week

International Christian Concern documented a second assault just days earlier, on June 16, in Ungwan Magaji village in Kaduna State. Armed men attacked the predominantly Christian farming settlement, killing nine residents and injuring at least 11. Combined with the Kawel deaths, at least 31 Christians were killed across the two states within one week, according to International Christian Concern.

The Broader Pattern

This is not an isolated incident. In February 2026, Islamic State jihadists killed 162 people in attacks on two villages in Nigeria, according to CBN News. In May 2026, Boko Haram beheaded seven Nigerian Christians, CBN News also reported.

The scale of the problem is documented by Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List: of the 4,849 Christians killed globally for their faith between October 2024 and September 2025, 3,490 were Nigerian, representing 72 percent of the worldwide total. That is an increase from 3,100 Nigerian Christians killed the prior year, according to Christian Daily International.

Nigeria ranked seventh on Open Doors' list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Who Is Responsible and Why

The strongest counterargument to framing this purely as religious persecution is the land conflict dimension. Christian leaders in the region, as reported by Christian Daily International, argue that Fulani herdsmen attacks are driven partly by desertification pushing herders south in search of fertile farmland, creating resource competition with Christian farming communities. Some analysts treat this as an environmental and economic conflict that maps onto religious lines rather than a purely ideological holy war.

This framing is undercut by the tactical specifics of the Kawel attack: telecom lines cut in advance, gunmen calling out names of Christian leaders, a pastor and a doctor singled out for assassination. Resource competition does not explain targeting by name.

The United Kingdom's All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Belief noted in a 2020 report, cited by both Christian Daily International and the Daily Wire, that a radical Fulani faction "adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity." The report also noted that the Fulani people number in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, and that most clans do not hold extremist views. The violence is not representative of the broader Fulani population.

What Remains Unanswered

No Nigerian government official has been quoted by any of these sources responding to the Kawel attack. The question of why telecom services were cut before the assault, and whether that capability required external coordination, has not been addressed by Nigerian security agencies in these reports. International Christian Concern noted that some attackers were recognized by residents as individuals who had previously lived in the area, raising the question of whether local informants enabled the targeting of specific victims. That question remains open as of June 29, 2026.