An urgent prayer request came from my Fulani Christian friend in Nigeria July 11. His relatives were in danger: “Soldiers arrived suddenly and started chasing everyone. They arrested four men and stampeded the cows, which promptly got into the nearby farms. When another man came back to try to get the cows out of the farms, he was arrested too. All five were taken away, so far no news on why.”
The next day another message: “Five more people were arrested, still no reason given. … Pray for the situation to de-escalate.”
Despite our prayers, violence did escalate. Gunmen of a farming ethnic group who identify as Christian shot eight cows July 16. On July 17, they shot and injured a Fulani herding his cows. And on July 19, attackers killed six cows and three men, one of whom was the husband of my friend’s sister.
Mary Crirckmore
We were devastated. Then on Aug. 6, three teenagers and 14 of the cows they were herding were killed.
Why were armed Christians attacking Fulani herders? Ethnic Berom and ethnic Fulani in that area have been fighting over land in cycles of retaliation since 2001. Similar violence from land conflicts has destroyed communities in many other Nigerian states.
In the course of my work supporting peacebuilding and trauma healing, I have interviewed many Nigerians. I saw places where Christian farmers of one ethnic group attacked Christian farmers of another ethnic group. In one, two farmers wanted to plant crops in the same field. One killed the other, then their relatives and their home villages got their guns and fought each other. In another place, I saw church buildings and a women’s ministry bus burned by Christians from a competing ethnic group, again over control of land.
Similarly, violent conflict cycles between farming ethnic groups and herding ethnic groups have killed and displaced families over much of Nigeria. When cows get into a field and destroy crops, the farmer may shoot the boy herding the cows, and then men from the boy’s family attack the farmer’s village in revenge, then the farmer’s village makes a counterattack on the herder’s camp.
Violence causes trauma, and one result of trauma is to increase violence. Grieving people often are filled with rage and desire revenge. Parents and grandparents can pass the anger and resentment against the group who attacked them to the next generation, which we call “generational trauma.”
And in Nigeria, young men have easy access to automatic weapons.
Loyalty to one’s ethnic group is a high cultural value for most Nigerians. Each of the approximately 300 ethnic groups has its unique language, history and traditions. Most ethnicities consider themselves to have either a Christian identity (such as the Yoruba, Tiv, Berom and Igbo) or a Muslim identity (such as the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri). A person who is in a bar every day, never in church, and even practices black magic can still be considered a Christian just because of ethnicity. And a person who does not do Muslim prayers or attend the mosque can still be considered Muslim just because of their ethnicity.
Because of this group identity, when conflict over land happens between an ethnic group seen as Muslim and a group seen as Christian, the Muslim group may be labeled as “jihadists” and the Christian group may be labelled as “persecuted.”
One Fulani Christian pastor told me: “I’ve been labeled a killer and called wicked simply because I belong to a tribe — as if any of us chose the tribe or family we were born into.”
“There are Fulani Christians preaching peace and the gospel. There are Muslim Fulani leaders who also stand for peace.”
Another Fulani Christian pastor wrote: “Please understand: The Fulani are not a single group with one agenda. There are Fulani Christians preaching peace and the gospel. There are Muslim Fulani leaders who also stand for peace. And there are criminals who happen to be Fulani, just as there are criminals in every ethnic group. Collective blame only produces more cycles of violence.”
The attacks by ethnic Fulani on farming ethnic groups have been well publicized. One tragic incident on June 21, 2026, resulted in the deaths of 22 people, including a pastor in the village of Kawel. The publicity reached the European Parliament, which responded with a resolution on July 9 condemning “ongoing persecution of Christians in Nigeria, notably the Kawel village massacre.”
But no publicity had reached Western media and the European Parliament about attacks done by Christian ethnic groups. My colleagues in Nigeria have been documenting and compiling these cases of anti-Fulani violence. Just in the last year, in multiple areas, Fulani homes were burned, cattle were poisoned and shot or stolen, herders were killed, and Fulani attending funerals were shot.
The tragic attack on Kawel village was preceded by three years of horrific violence in that area of Plateau State. In December 2023, Fulani cattle were stolen, herders killed and homes burned by armed farmers; then enraged Fulani made a counterattack on Christmas Eve that killed around 200 people.
That Christmas Eve attack has been widely publicized in Nigerian and U.S. media, blaming Fulani ethnic militias for genocide of Christians. But a survey of residents in that area confirmed that the root cause of the violence is a struggle for survival by groups competing for access to land.
In June 2026 the UN sent their special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Professor Nazila Ghanea, to investigate the violence in Nigeria. Ghanea reported: “There is no evidence cases of mass killings, displacement, abduction and related incidents in Nigeria are directed at a particular belief system to qualify as religious persecution.”
Unfortunately, Nigerian influencers on social media who call for U.S. military intervention against Fulani get much more attention than the many courageous church leaders who work for peace and trauma healing. Trauma healing addresses rage and hatred and is key to ending cycles of violence.
Three organizations I know personally that provide such programs are Beacon of Hope, the Christian Council of Nigeria Center for Peacebuilding and Trauma Healing in Jos, and Adinya Arise Foundation. There are many more, and they all need more funding. These are the “blessed peacemakers” commended by Jesus whom American Christians should support.
Mary Crickmore has worked for mission agencies in West Africa since 1985, including leading trauma healing training for pastors and women leaders in Nigeria. She is a co-editor of Healing the Wounds of Trauma: How the Church Can Help, 2021 edition by American Bible Society.