Christians in a village in Nigeria remain traumatized by violence at the same time as a priest held hostage for 61 days was released last month, sources said.
The Rev. Bobbo Paschal of St. Stephen Catholic Parish in Kushe Gugdu village, Kagarko County, Kaduna state was released on Jan. 17 after terrorists kidnapped him on Nov. 17, based on the Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna.
Innocent Yakubu, a community leader in Kushe Gugdu, near Kubacha, said Fulani herdsmen invaded the village and killed one other Christian on the day they kidnapped Paschal.
“It has thrown the whole community into fear, sorrow, and uncertainty,” Yakubu told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The entire community stays traumatized as we proceed to go looking for safety that now not exists.”
In the kidnapping of Paschal as he prepared for the morning Mass within the early hours of Nov. 17, church member Gideon Markus was killed and two other congregants were kidnapped and remain in captivity, based on leaders of the archdiocese.
Yakubu said the village has suffered repeated attacks by Fulani assailants for a few years which have claimed lives and destroyed livelihoods, he said.
“Christians here now live in constant fear because violence has change into a recurring nightmare,” Yakubu said. “Our land is bleeding, our hearts are broken and our communities are losing hope.”
The kidnapping of Paschal was not the primary time a priest or resident has been abducted in Kushe and surrounding villages, he said.
Sunday Audu, one other area resident, said herdsmen in late January and early February also attacked Aribi, Ungwan Pah, Dogon Daji and Kurmin Lemu villages.
The 166 Christians kidnapped by armed Muslim terrorists in Kurmin Wali village, Kaduna state were released within the early hours of Thursday (Feb. 5), the Rev. Joseph Hayab, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Northern Nigeria chapter, said in an announcement.
“All the 166 Christians kidnapped by terrorists in Kurmin Wali community have now been released,” Hayab said. “They are currently being attended to in a military hospital, after which they will probably be transferred to the Kaduna State Government and subsequently, to be released to their families.”
The Christian leader, a Baptist pastor, said no ransom was paid by churches for the discharge of the captives, but that the federal government that handled the negotiations with the terrorists.
The Christians were kidnapped on Jan. 18, while attending church worship services.
Congressional Hearing
At a hearing of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 4, religious liberty advocates spoke of recurring killings, abductions and mass displacement in Nigeria.
Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback described Nigeria as a frontline of worldwide terrorism with militant Islamist groups expanding their attacks across Africa and the Middle East.
“The deadliest place on the planet to be a Christian is Nigeria; early warning signs of a Muslim-on-Christian war are emerging across Africa, and Nigeria sits at the middle of that danger,” Brownback said.
Radical, militant Islam continues its “purification efforts” throughout the Middle East North Africa region and beyond, he said. “Syria and Nigeria are key focus areas of their quest for dominance, excluding all other faiths.”
Stephen Schneck, former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2024 to 2025), said on the hearing that freedom of spiritual expression is facing a world crisis propelled by authoritarianism, religious nationalism and weak state institutions.
“Nigeria, Syria and Sudan are examples of nations where poor governance and widespread insecurity have created dangerous conditions for communities of religion,” Schneck said.
Committee Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) advisable the U.S. address the “culture of denial” by Nigerian officials despite mass killings of Christians by Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Fulani militants; sustain and implement the designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC); apply International Religious Freedom Act policy tools similar to sanctions, economic penalties against Nigerian entities enabling or tolerating religious freedom violations; compel Nigeria to guard Christians and moderate Muslims from religiously motivated violence; urge Nigerian authorities to prosecute perpetrators and forestall attacks in Christian communities; and monitor and curb influence by China, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, that are exacerbating instability in Nigeria.
At the identical time, a petition by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) before the United Nations on genocide against Christians in Nigeria received wide acceptance inside 16 hours of its filing, based on ACLJ President and CEO Jordan Sekulow.
Within a day of the petition being posted on the ACLJ website, greater than 517,000 signatures have been gathered, with the goal of 750,000 signatures expected.
Saying 90 percent of all Christians killed worldwide are in Nigeria, Sekulow said Christians live in a continuing state of terror, fearing abduction, torture and murder by radical Islamic jihadists, including Fulani herdsmen.
Numbering within the thousands and thousands across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise lots of of clans of many alternative lineages who don’t hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.
“They adopt a comparable technique to Boko Haram and ISWAP and show a transparent intent to focus on Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they imagine herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.
More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in some other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, based on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for his or her faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, a rise from 3,100 the prior yr. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it’s most difficult to be a Christian.
In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they’re within the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many lots of, Christians above all, based on the report. Jihadist groups similar to Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), amongst others, are also lively within the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities proceed to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, based on the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably lately.
The violence has spread to southern states, and a recent jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged within the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.
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