Barnabas provided maize and beans to sustain 200 Christian households (about 1,600 individuals) for four months after they were forced to flee their homes in Kaduna State, Nigeria following attacks by Fulani Islamist militants.
We also gave them sleeping mats, blankets and mosquito nets, replacing household items lost when their homes were burned down.
Aid was focused on those most in need – widows, children and pregnant women.
Christian women collect together Barnabas-funded food and practical aid.
Our church partners gathered the recipients in small groups for the distribution because of the heightened risk of a militant Fulani attack on larger gatherings. Only weeks earlier terrorists had targeted mourners congregating for funerals of victims of an earlier attack on a Christian village.
Thanking Barnabas supporters for their love and care, a pastor said that the gifts of maize and beans would mean believers will not have to put themselves at risk of further attack while foraging for food in remote farmlands.
Around 45,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by Islamist militants since 2009, mainly in the North and Middle Belt, which includes Kaduna State.
Jihadi groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, as well as Islamist Fulani, carry out attacks on rural Christian communities, killing and kidnapping people, burning buildings and crops.
Give thanks for the safe delivery of the Barnabas-funded aid. Pray that Nigerian Christians enduring the daily danger of attack keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, who thought nothing of dying on the Cross.
Project reference: 39-772 (Victims of Violence Nigeria)
