Longdi ThankGod, a 22-year-old Christian woman, was in labour at a rural clinic in Nigeria’s Middle Belt when armed Fulani militia men stormed the building shortly after midnight. She escaped into the darkness while still enduring contractions, pursued by one of the attackers, as others killed her husband and four members of his family.
By dawn, at least 22 people were dead in a coordinated assault in the area, barely a mile from a military base.
The attack was one of six assaults on Christian communities in Plateau State within two weeks of a visit to the region by a CSI team. One of CSI’s local partners attended the burial and spoke to survivors, including Longdi ThankGod, who managed to survive the attack.
ThankGod was taken to a government clinic in Kawel village, in Bokkos Local Government Area, on 21 June as labour pains intensified. A doctor was attending to her and preparing for the delivery. Her 26-year-old husband, ThankGod Danjuma, along with his brother, father, mother and grandmother, were by her side awaiting the child’s birth.
The attack
Hours later, at about 12:10 a.m. on 22 June, tens of attackers arrived on foot, wearing a mix of military fatigues and long tunics and carrying AK-style rifles, according to witnesses. Some also reported machine guns. Witnesses heard Hausa and Fulani languages spoken during the attack and reported that Islamic religious slogans were shouted.
The attackers first struck a private compound used by two police officers, one of whom was ill. As the other officer returned fire, the attackers moved on to the clinic.
“I heard some hard knocks on the door and thought it was the doctor struggling with the door because he had complained about its stiffness when he walked in,” ThankGod said. “Just a moment later, they came straight in and hit my husband’s grandmother to the ground before I realised it was a much bigger problem before us.”
She said she narrowly escaped and fought her way out. One of the attackers followed her for some distance, but she endured the labor pains in silence and lay low at times until she reached a nearby house and squeezed through a narrow gap in its cactus fence. The residents were initially frightened and asked who she was. She identified herself and told them she was being chased by Fulanis. They agreed to give her shelter.
By the time the attack ended at about 4:15 a.m., her husband, four other relatives, the doctor and a motorcycle taxi rider who had transported her to the clinic had been killed. At least 15 other residents, including a pastor identified as 55-year-old Rev. Markus Azi, were also killed in the surrounding neighbourhood where the clinic was located.
Eight orphans, one caretaker
The residents of the house where ThankGod had taken refuge took her to Salama Hospital, where she delivered her baby at about 2 p.m. that day. She named the baby girl Na’anbammun, a word that means “God saved us”.
The birth, however, marked the beginning of a daunting new reality. Having survived the attack, lost her husband and four other close relatives, and endured childbirth within hours of the ordeal, the 22-year-old now faces responsibilities far beyond caring for a newborn.
The attack left eight of her husband’s siblings, four of whom are minors, without parents. ThankGod, who is a certified hairdresser, is now their primary caretaker. The family is sheltering in overcrowded conditions at the home of her husband’s aunt, a widow, in the Bokkos area.
Left to bury their own dead
A Special Task Force base, Sector 5, in Mushere district, is about one mile from the attack site. Local residents contacted the base during the assault. Accounts differed on when soldiers arrived, with one placing their arrival at about 4:00 a.m. and another at roughly 6:00 a.m. – between four and six hours after the attack began.
Police were subsequently reported to have deployed to collect evidence and interview witnesses. However, relatives of the victims said none of the deceased were taken to a hospital for formal confirmation of death, and no autopsies were conducted. Family members also said authorities instructed them to proceed with a mass burial that same afternoon. The dead were placed in a mass grave without coffins, and the bodies were not covered with sheets before burial.
A region under siege
Witnesses also noted that no provocation such as cattle killing, rustling, or the killing of Fulani individuals was reported before the attack. This was stressed in response to a narrative promoted by Fulani lobby groups and the Nigerian government, that the violence is part of a clash between Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers.
Nigeria’s religious population is largely divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. Between them lies the Middle Belt, a region of considerable ethnic and religious diversity where Christians and Muslims both form substantial parts of the population.
The narrative holds that predominantly Muslim Fulani herders, pushed southward by desertification and the degradation of pastureland in northern Nigeria, have come into conflict with Christian farming communities over access to land and water in the Middle Belt, leading to years of deadly violence. As herds encroach on farmland, the argument runs, farmers retaliate by killing or rustling cattle, herders retaliate in turn, and a cycle of reciprocal violence follows.
Unprovoked attacks like the Kawel massacre fly in the face of this narrative. Local Christian activists instead describe a concerted campaign of attacks from well-armed militias, aimed at driving Christians from the Middle Belt.
Christian communities have repeatedly complained that security forces arrive only after attacks have taken place and that few perpetrators are held accountable. Policing in Nigeria is controlled by the federal government, and political power has historically been dominated by the country’s Muslim-majority northern region.
