Hundreds confirmed dead in militia attack in Benue State

Over 100 people are confirmed to have been killed in an attack by militia of Fulani ethnicity on the Yelewata community in the Guma Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State, Nigeria on 13 June. Some reports indicate that the final death toll could be as a high as 200.

CSW sources report that the terrorists initially targeted the Yelewata mission site, which shelters over 400 internally displaced persons (IDPs), at approximately 10pm on 13 June, but were repelled by military personnel. The assailants subsequently attacked the Yelewata Main Market, setting buildings on fire and mutilating and burning the bodies of victims, some of whom were trapped in their homes.

Witnesses report that the attackers chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and suggested that the operation bore the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing.

The attack followed several days of terrorist violence in Guma. On 8 June two farmers were killed and a third was seriously wounded when they were fired upon whilst working in their fields in Udei in the Nyiev Council Ward. On 11 June two people were killed in a machete attack in Tse Ivokor, Unongu, and the following day five people were killed in an ambush on farmlands in Daudu as they were searching for the bodies of those who had been killed in the previous day’s attack.

Another search party comprising four people was killed on 13 June, also in Daudu, while five others were killed and eight were injured in an attack on the Akondutough community in North Bank in the neighbouring Makurdi LGA.

According to a report from the Daily Trust newspaper, 270 people were killed in Benue State from 1 April to 1 June alone, and the Benue NGOs Network estimates that over 5,700 lives have been lost to terrorist violence that has been ongoing in the state since 2011, with more than 150,000 people displaced. Over 6,500 were reportedly displaced in a single wave of violence in June 2025, with 2,843 new arrivals recorded at IDP sites in just one week in February 2025.

CSW-Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer Reverend Yunusa Nmadu said: ‘It’s unfortunate that Benue, once touted as the food basket of the nation, is grappling with hunger due to the inability of its people to till their farms. I urge the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, move from mere rhetoric and perfunctory condemnation to a sincere, committed, and single-minded determination to halt the killings not only in Benue but in other states across the nation, which are bleeding from the menace of armed herdsmen.’

CSW UK’s CEO Scot Bower added: ‘CSW extends our deepest condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in this recent bout of relentless violence in Benue State. The international community must recognise that the violence that been unfolding in Nigeria’s Middlebelt for over a decade now bears all the hallmarks of an atrocity crime, and must respond accordingly by demanding that Nigeria recalibrates its military strategy and resource its armed forces to address the national security threat posed by the Fulani militia and other armed non-state actors as a matter of utmost urgency.’