by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent
ABUJA/SIOUX CITY (Worthy News) – A chilling new documentary has highlighted the growing crisis for Christians in Nigeria, where investigators say more than three million believers face persecution from Islamic militants and other extremist groups.
The film, A Father’s Day Massacre in Yelewata, produced by TruthNigeria — the news division of U.S.-based humanitarian nonprofit Equipping the Persecuted — documents the overnight assault of June 13–14, 2025, on Yelewata village in Benue State.
Survivors in the film recalled how gunmen stormed their homes, burning families alive and slaughtering what they claimed were 210 villagers in less than 24 hours.
TruthNigeria’s later investigation raised the toll to over 270, while independent church and rights-group sources cited between 100 and 200 deaths.
The documentary includes graphic images of charred remains, destroyed churches, and grieving families. It also presents leaked intelligence from Nigeria’s Department of State Security (DSS), showing officials were warned a month earlier about an imminent assault on Yelewata.
Yet, no preventive action was taken. Military forces reportedly arrived more than five hours after the massacre ended, leaving villagers to fend for themselves. Drone footage and eyewitness accounts included in the film depict scorched farmland, mass graves, and burned-out stalls where families were trapped and killed.
COMMUNAL CLASH?
Survivors said government officials pressured them to describe the atrocity as a “communal clash,” while journalists were blocked from accessing the area. “We released this film to sound the alarm about an ongoing radical Islamic terror campaign to eradicate Nigeria’s Christians,” said evangelist and Equipping the Persecuted founder Judd Saul, a filmmaker, in remarks to U.S. Christian media outlet CBN News.
Saul urged Washington to act decisively: “We need to fight this thing threefold. America, as a government, needs to get involved… even a very little push with sanctions and aggressive foreign policy could put a stop to this.”
The Yelewata massacre, Saul insisted, was not an isolated event. “This is part of a systematic campaign of Christian genocide in Nigeria. The world cannot ignore this any longer.”
Truth Nigeria’s investigation estimates the Yelewata operation cost $300,000, including fighter wages of around $167 each — 150 percent of a Nigerian civil servant’s monthly salary.
Security analyst “Hezekiah,” cited in the film, said: “The manpower, money, and machinery reflect a chilling level of coordination and premeditation.” He added: “Without addressing the financial and systemic enablers, communities like Yelewata remain highly vulnerable.”
The mass killings were among numerous reported atrocities in a nation where about 17 Christians are killed for their faith every day in Nigeria, according to Christian researchers.
DANGEROUS NATION
That pattern has been evident throughout 2025, Worthy News documented.
On Palm Sunday, more than 50 Christians were reportedly ambushed and killed near Jos, Plateau State, as they returned from church services.
In the weeks after Easter, over 80 Christians were killed in a wave of coordinated attacks in Benue State, according to Christian sources and rights activists. Later that month, coordinated strikes on six villages in Plateau displaced thousands of families, several sources said.
The 2025 World Watch List of 50 nations where advocacy group Open Doors says it is most dangerous to be a Christian said 3,100 Christians were killed in Nigeria between October 2023 and September 2024.
Another 2,830 Christians were reportedly abducted during the same period, according to investigators. Christian watchdogs also noted that over 3.3 million people, mostly Christians, remain displaced inside the country.
Nigeria accounted for roughly 70 percent of all Christians killed worldwide during that reporting period, making it the deadliest nation for followers of Christ, Open Doors concluded.
FULANI MILITIA
A loose network of armed Muslim Fulani militants and criminal gangs is blamed for about 80 percent of Christian deaths in Nigeria, with Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) responsible for another 15 percent, according to investigators.
“These attacks are not spontaneous,” Saul stressed. “They are planned, systematic, and too often ignored or even excused by Nigerian officials.”
The reported atrocities drew international condemnation. Pope Leo XIV described the killings as a “terrible massacre.”
U.S. Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, who has traveled to Nigeria, introduced a resolution in Congress denouncing the violence.
“There has been an exponential increase in attacks on Christians and some Muslims, but Christians in particular, Protestants, evangelicals, Catholics — they’re firebombing their churches,” Smith said.
He accused Nigeria’s government of being “silent and unresponsive,” adding: “We’ve called on the government in Abuja and the president several times: do what governments do — law enforcement, use the military if you have to, but stop this genocide, and do it now.”
TRUMP PRESSURED
Smith is urging President Donald Trump to reissue Nigeria’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern,” a move that would allow punitive measures.
Asked whether the administration was considering such a move, U.S. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently said that “the president wholeheartedly condemns the persecution of Christians or frankly, of people of any faith all over the world.”
However “I don’t have any updates for you in terms of sanctions in this part of the world,” she added.
Founded in 2019 in Sioux City, Iowa, Equipping the Persecuted provides emergency aid within 48 hours of attacks, trains local security teams, operates schools and orphan care programs, and reports atrocities through TruthNigeria.com.
Its mission, Saul says, is simple: “Expose the truth, save lives, and provide hope where it is most needed.”
With massacres continuing in Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt, A Father’s Day Massacre in Yelewata, distributed through several online media platforms, tries to ensure the plight of persecuted Christians is no longer ignored, its producers suggest.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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