Anita was shot twice in the hip when Fulani extremists attacked her mainly Christian village back in 2016. After several surgical procedures she had recently learned to walk again. Then on Sunday 20 March 2022, she was killed when her village was attacked a second time, and 32 of its residents were massacred. One was her brother and another her mother, whom Anita saw burned alive. Anita herself perished after seven gunshot wounds and a gash on her head.
Where did this tragic anti-Christian violence occur on 20 March? In Kagoro, where Anita lived, and in three other villages of Kaduna State, Nigeria. More than 200 houses and 32 shops were burned in the same attack. Seven injured survivors were hospitalised. Six thousand people were displaced.
Four days later, about 50 people were killed and 100 abducted, including a church minister, when nine villages in another part of Kaduna State were attacked. Cattle were stolen, a church building and homes razed to the ground.
One of the many buildings damaged or destroyed during Islamist violence in Kaduna State on 20 March. Can you help those who have lost so much?
Christians a main target in two decades of violence
These figures add to the massive death toll in Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt, with Christians one of the main targets of the men of violence. It is estimated that over 17,000 people have been killed since 1999, most of them in the last twelve years.
Kidnappings are on the rise as well, with 2,200 people abducted in the first nine months of 2021 – more than double the number in 2020.
What can they eat? Where can they go?
When a village is destroyed, where do the shocked, grieving and wounded survivors go? What can they eat if their crops and food stores are burned? How can they shelter from the weather if their homes have been razed?
Barnabas is Helping
Countless thousands of Nigerian Christians have been displaced by such violence. Many are farmers, who lose their livelihoods when forced from their land.
But, with your gifts and through our Christian partners in Nigeria, Barnabas is giving emergency aid to Anita’s village and other Christian communities displaced by recent violence.
$2.60 could buy one mosquito net
$17 could buy four blankets
$39 could buy 80 kg of maize
$78 could buy 80 kg of beans
$105 could buy 100 kg of rice
Barnabas-funded aid is distributed to victims of violence in Nigeria's Plateau State in late 2021. Can you help us to continue our practical support for suffering Christians across Nigeria?
