At least 167 people were killed when gunmen attacked the villages of Woro and Nuku in Kwara State, western Nigeria, according to the Nigerian Red Cross, making it one of the deadliest recent attacks in the country.
The assaults took place Tuesday evening, with attackers carrying out executions and setting fire to homes, shops, and other buildings. Officials said details were still being gathered, and no group has formally claimed responsibility.
Death toll estimates vary. Amnesty International said more than 170 people were killed, citing widespread destruction and looting.
The Red Cross said access to the villages has been difficult because of their remoteness near the Benin border, complicating efforts to recover bodies and confirm casualties. Footage from the scene showed bodies on the ground, some with their hands bound, and houses engulfed in flames.
The Kwara State government confirmed the attack but did not identify the perpetrators or release details about the victims’ religious identities.
While Nigeria has faced international scrutiny over killings of Christians, sources report that at least 70 of the dead were Muslims who rejected extremism.
Muslim analysts and residents suggested the attackers were either a Boko Haram faction or Lakurawa, an Islamic State–affiliated group, though neither claim has been officially confirmed.
Survivors said residents hid as gunmen carried out executions and arson before fleeing. After the attackers left, villagers emerged to collect the dead, with early counts rising steadily as searches continued.
Families reported relatives being killed while working on farms, highlighting the suddenness and brutality of the assault.
Amnesty International said villagers had received warning letters for months before the attack and described the failure to prevent it as an unacceptable security lapse. Kwara State’s governor characterized the killings as retaliation by terrorist cells under pressure from ongoing counterterrorism operations.
In recent years, armed groups have expanded into parts of the state, including a national park, where they extort farming and fishing communities and carry out kidnappings. Analysts said the scale of the killings was unprecedented for the area.
The massacre occurred amid Nigeria’s broader security crisis, which includes Islamist insurgency in the northeast, mass kidnappings across the northwest and central regions, and repeated large-scale attacks by Boko Haram and Islamic State–linked factions.
U.S. Africa Command said a small team of U.S. military officers was recently sent to Nigeria, following earlier U.S. airstrikes on IS-affiliated militants.
Nigeria has also come under diplomatic pressure from President Trump, who has accused the government of failing to protect Christian communities.
This killing comes just weeks after a large-scale abduction of Christians in Kaduna State. That incident occurred on Sunday, January 18, 2026, in the Kurmin Wali community of Kajuru Local Government Area, during coordinated attacks carried out while Sunday church services were underway.
At approximately 9:00 a.m., heavily armed militants identified by local witnesses as Fulani Islamists raided the village, arriving on foot and motorcycles.
The attackers split into groups and simultaneously stormed three churches: Evangelical Church Winning All, Haske Cherubim and Seraphim Church 1, and Albarka Cherubim and Seraphim Church 2. Worshippers were rounded up at gunpoint and forced into nearby bushland.
Initial reports from local leaders and the Christian Association of Nigeria said 177 people were abducted, including men, women, and children.
Elderly women and young children were later released, and 11 people managed to escape in the days immediately following the attack. Based on church records, CAN calculated that 166 people initially remained in captivity after the escapes.
The response from authorities quickly became a major point of contention. For the first 24 to 48 hours, Kaduna State Police Commissioner Muhammad Rabiu publicly dismissed reports of the abduction as “totally false” and “falsehoods peddled by conflict entrepreneurs.”
Local leaders, including village head Ishaku Dan’azumi, insisted the raid had occurred and invited journalists to the village, pointing to empty churches and scattered hymn books as evidence.
According to Paul, a local journalist I spoke with, families of the missing began posting on social media, challenging the lower casualty figures claimed by the government. He said officials were trying to avoid bad publicity and that “the same was true of the massacre last Tuesday.”
Paul added that much of the local news media is complicit, explaining, “They do not report when the incident happens. They wait until it gets out on social media.” He said this is why many killings never reach the public domain, as incidents go unreported by the media.
After church officials released names and photographs of the missing, federal police acknowledged that the attack had taken place, later claiming the initial denial was meant to avoid panic and had been misunderstood.
Disputes over the numbers followed. Authorities for a time confirmed only that “over 100” people were missing, while questioning church calculations. Local leaders and CAN maintained their detailed accounting of 177 abducted minus 11 escapees.
In early February, police said roughly 80 people had returned home safely. Church leaders responded that these were individuals who had been hiding in the bush and that at least 86 Christians were still being held by the kidnappers.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a U.K.-based human rights group, urged Nigerian authorities to secure the release of the abducted worshippers and criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the incident. CSW said its Nigeria staff were blocked by the military from accessing Kurmin Wali to verify the attack.
CSW noted that the Adara people of Kajuru have been under sustained attack since 2018, when their traditional ruler was abducted and murdered despite ransom payment.
The group cited repeated recent abductions in Kurmin Wali, including a January 11 incident in which 21 people were taken and released only after ransom was paid, and a January 2 abduction of a church leader and others from a nearby village, with demands of up to 20 million naira.
Despite the Nigerian government’s December 2025 designation of Fulani militia and other armed groups as terrorist organizations, CSW said attacks and mass abductions have continued.
The group described the situation as a failure of government responsibility, warning that ransom payments, displacement, and insecurity are driving rural Christian communities deeper into poverty.
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