Nigerians prepare bodies for burial after attacks on Palm Sunday 2025. Similar attacks occurred this year. – BP File photo
PLATEAU STATE, Nigeria (BP) – At least 53 Nigerians were killed in three Palm Sunday attacks in predominantly Christian communities in North Central Nigeria, International Christian Concern (ICC) and others reported.
Not all of the victims were Christians in the deadliest attack when at least 30 people were killed and several others hospitalized, Open Doors UK reported. But all attacks occurred in areas known to be predominantly or significantly Christian, with a Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) field worker describing the Jos community as “100 percent Christian.”
In the deadliest attack gunmen, variously identified by survivors as militant Fulani or Boko Haram terrorists, stormed with gunfire the Ungwan Rukuba community in the Plateau State area of Jos around 8 p.m. on Palm Sunday. Gunmen killed at least 27-30 residents there, witnesses said, impacting several homes.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, local government authorities said, as the number of dead continues to rise.
Despite a 48-hour curfew designed to curb violence following the attack, area residents protested in the streets, lamenting responses from the law enforcement long described as inadequate.
“Nigerians are tired of mourning. Nigerians are tired of statements. Nigerians want to see action,” Christian Association of Nigeria President Daniel Okoh said March 30 in publicly condemning the Jos attack. “Those responsible for this atrocity must be found, arrested and made to face justice; swiftly and decisively. Anything less will only deepen the sense that life in our country is no longer protected.”
The Jos attackers were dressed similarly to Nigerian security forces, Okoh said, and shot defenseless people.
“Lives were cut short in minutes. Families have been shattered. A community has been traumatized,” Okoh said. “The use of fake or imitation military uniforms by these attackers is particularly alarming. It strikes at the very heart of public trust and must be thoroughly investigated. Our security institutions must not only respond; they must stay ahead of these threats.”
In issuing the curfew, Plateau State Gov. Caleb Manasseh Muftwang said the state government “strongly condemns this barbaric and unprovoked attack on innocent citizens and assures the public that all necessary measures are being taken to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” Open Doors reported.
The Jos attack followed earlier attacks Palm Sunday in the Christian communities of Angwa Rukuba Junction in Eto Baba, where at least 10 people were killed, and in Kahir village in the Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State, killing at least 13 people attending a bachelor party, ICC said. Victims killed at the bachelor party were ages 21 to 31, ICC said, based on official reports.
Those killed in Angwa Rukuba Junction were Christians, ICC said, quoting a local humanitarian worker.
VOM spokesperson Todd Nettleton issued a call for prayer for persecuted Christian communities this Holy Week.
“As American Christians gather to celebrate the empty tomb this Resurrection Sunday, we must not forget those who are echoing Christ’s ‘living sacrifice’ by risking their own lives in restricted nations and hostile areas,” Nettleton, VOM’s vice president of message, said in a press release. “For these brothers and sisters around the world, Easter is often a season of peril.”
The latest attacks are in line with similarly deadly Holy Week terrorist attacks in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. More than 240 Christians were massacred in attacks on villages in Plateau and Benue states during Lent and Easter of 2025, some as they worshiped, ICC and others reported that year.
In November 2025, the U.S. government designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for tolerating severe religious persecution of Christians in particular. The following month, the U.S. military fired Tomahawk missiles on Sokoto in northwest Nigeria, but casualties were never reported. Those airstrikes were about 350 miles northwest of Jos.
Note: Story originally published by Baptist Press.
