The Palm Sunday massacres of Christians continued into Holy Week, with additional killings on Monday and Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Paul, a local journalist.
At least 53 Nigerians were killed in multiple Palm Sunday attacks targeting Christian communities in north-central Nigeria, according to International Christian Concern and other sources.
In the deadliest incident, gunmen identified by survivors as either militant Fulani or Boko Haram terrorists stormed the Ungwan Rukuba community in the Plateau State area of Jos at around 8 p.m.
The attack in Jos followed earlier violence the same day in Angwa Rukuba Junction in Eto Baba, where at least 10 people were killed.
Additional killings occurred in Kahir village in the Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State, where gunmen attacked a bachelor party and killed at least 13 attendees. The victims at the gathering ranged in age from 21 to 31.
In an interview with The Gateway Pundit, Joshua Emmanuel, a missionary in northern Nigeria and president of Jos Reformed Theological College, said he has lived in Jos for nearly ten years and has extensive experience with ongoing violence in the region.
He explained that he was present during the latest crisis and had gone into the city to assess conditions firsthand. The Palm Sunday massacre occurred in Angwan Rukuba, just minutes from where he lives and works.
He described how a 48-hour curfew was imposed following the massacre and then lifted the following morning, allowing people to return to work and markets to reopen.
However, by mid-morning, new attacks began. Emmanuel said that armed men carrying machetes appeared in the Terminus area and began attacking Christians in the streets, causing widespread panic.
He explained that fear quickly spread across the city, leading to similar incidents in other neighborhoods. A Christian man was killed near the state university, and Emmanuel personally witnessed the killing of a man whose vehicle was burned.
Emmanuel said he drove through the city later that morning and observed a dramatic shift in atmosphere. Areas that had been busy earlier were nearly empty, with most women absent from the streets.
Groups of Muslim and Christian men stood on opposite sides of the roads, watching each other closely, while in other areas large groups gathered and violence broke out.
“People are getting hacked up with machetes,” he said, describing the sporadic but widespread nature of the clashes. He added that the total number of casualties remained unclear, though injuries were likely significant.
He emphasized that tensions in the city are among the highest he has seen in a decade. According to Emmanuel, many Christians feel anger and frustration after repeated attacks and a lack of accountability.
He said they are “sick and tired of being slaughtered” and believe that security forces are either absent or slow to respond. This anger has contributed to retaliatory actions by some Christian men and youths, further escalating the situation.
Emmanuel described the city as largely shut down, with limited access to fuel, supplies, and basic services. Movement remained restricted, and residents stayed close to their homes.
He noted an unusually high number of checkpoints throughout the city, with security forces stationed at short intervals. “The city is really tense right now,” he said, warning that the situation could quickly deteriorate into broader street fighting, as has happened in previous outbreaks of violence.
He added that Muslim religious leaders had encouraged the attacks.
“During their Salat time, the Muslim community, particularly some clerics and imams, did tell their people to take this opportunity… to hit and hurt the Christians.”
This claim has been repeated by many Nigerians across social media, who say that imams made posts telling their followers to attack Christians immediately after Ramadan.
In an interview with The Gateway Pundit, Paul, a local Christian and journalist, repeated the allegation, saying these instructions had been publicly issued weeks before the Palm Sunday attacks but were ignored.
He said Muslim youths had posted threats on Facebook roughly three weeks earlier, stating they would attack Christians after Ramadan and the Salah celebrations.
According to Paul, “They were not arrested, and no measures were put in place to forestall it.”
He criticized authorities for lifting the curfew imposed after the attacks without first deploying adequate security in known flashpoints.
Paul explained that these areas have a history of violence and were left vulnerable. As a result, when people returned to normal activity, some were stopped and killed.
“People innocently went out and they were stopped in those places and they were butchered and killed,” he said.
Paul argued that the sequence of events showed a clear pattern. He said threats were made publicly, no action was taken, attacks occurred on Palm Sunday, and then further violence followed immediately after the curfew was lifted.
He stated that Muslim attackers targeted Christian commuters on the roads as soon as restrictions were eased. “That should tell you it is not a coincidence,” he said, emphasizing that the violence followed a predictable progression.
He concluded that the attacks were deliberate and coordinated. “The whole thing is planned and orchestrated to kill Christians in their neighborhood,” he said, asserting that the failure to act on prior warnings and the timing of the violence pointed to premeditation.
Allegations that the government was aware of the attacks in advance but that soldiers and police failed to act were raised during a March 25 intelligence briefing in Washington, D.C., hosted by Equipping the Persecuted in coordination with Truth Nigeria.
Judd Saul, who leads both groups, said intelligence gathered from sources on the ground indicated that Nigerian authorities had prior knowledge of the threat.
Saul said the Nigerian military verified intelligence identifying the location of gunmen but did not take decisive action to stop them.
He stated that authorities reviewed his organization’s terror alerts for the first time and allegedly discovered more than 1,000 members of the Fulani Ethnic Militia assembled with automatic weapons and motorcycles in preparation for an ambush.
According to Saul, a Nigerian patrol engaged the group, but after the militants began to retreat, the commanding officer received orders not to pursue.
He warned that the threat remains ongoing and is expanding. Saul said the Fulani Ethnic Militia is gathering in large numbers and preparing attacks in Benue and Plateau states, as well as in southern Kaduna, including Chikun, Kafanchan, and Kajuru, along with parts of Taraba State.
“Nothing has slowed down, nothing is stopped,” he said, adding that more fighters are continuing to assemble. He described the situation as escalating and warned that “this is just the beginning.” failed
Most major U.S. mainstream media failed to report on either the Palm Sunday massacre or the continuing violence during Holy Week, with the exception of The New York Times.
The New York Times reported on the deaths while using the incident to support its claim that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. This comes despite the fact that in the first 220 days of 2025, more than 7,000 Christians were killed in the country, and the death toll is expected to double this year.
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