Credit: Mike Odeh James.
By Mike Odeh James and Olikita Ekani Makurdi
(Yelewata) Felicia David gave a face to the suffering of the Yelewata people as she sat sphinxlike in the Benue Teaching Hospital on June 18. Her dignified but traumatized mien stopped the suits from Abuja cold in their tracks. They had come to console a widow: but she was having none of it.
And why would she? Five days earlier she had lost her husband and three sons to preventable barbarism by Fulani ethnic mercenaries. The attack was preventable because local elders had given the military notice of the likely attack two days earlier, but the military left a skeleton crew behind to defend Yelewata. At her side was her seven-year-old son wearing a balled white bandage at the end of his right forearm missing a hand. He was the lucky one.
The visitors thought that she might share a little of their excitement about President Bola Ahmad Tinubu visiting Makurdi for the first time to commiserate with the victims of the president called “the violence.”
Speaking meekly, Felicia, who estimates her age between 50 and 55, explained why she was without words during the President’s visit.
“When the Fulanis attacked our village of Yelewata, they slaughtered three of my sons. The youngest, who is lying here, had his hand cut off and his back slashed. My daughter was severely burned, Mrs. David said.
“My husband was hacked to pieces and set ablaze in our bedroom. How I got here, I don’t even know. In this state of mind, I had nothing to say to the President or anyone.”
Ten-Month-Old Slashed, Mother Burned Alive
For baby Tegule, only ten months old, life was forever altered on the night of June 13, 2025. His mother, Anna Thomas, was locked into her accommodation room at the Yelewata public market, after which Fulani terrorists doused the wooden door with gasoline and lit it, burning her and others alive during the attack. The terrorists then slashed Tegule across the back. His father, also critically injured, is currently in the intensive care unit at the hospital.
Another survivor, Mrs. Ade Ukeyima, a 50-year-old farmer, showed TruthNigeria correspondents her son, seven-year-old Success Ukeyima.
“My husband and five others were locked inside our house. The Fulanis poured petrol and set it on fire,” she recounted. Success managed to escape, but sustained severe burns on his
hands, legs, and back.
“Right now, he can barely speak or eat,” Ade said, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I Lost Eight Family Members”
– Ter Iormba For Ter Iormba, a Christian farmer and trader, the night of June 13 marked the darkest moment of his life. He lost eight loved ones: two of his four wives, five children, and his younger brother, Matthew — a trained pharmacist.
“The attack started around 11 p.m. and lasted until 2 a.m. Fulani militias stormed our village and slaughtered my family. They also looted and set fire to all four of my market stalls and my home.” Even more devastating was that the attackers were not strangers.
“Suleiman and Abubakar — Fulani boys I often helped — led the attack. They used to eat, drink, and charge their phones at my shop,” Iormba said.
“They stormed my shops, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ speaking in Hausa and Fulfulde. They found my family hiding in the first shop near the main Lafia–Makurdi road, mutilated them, and set them ablaze.”
“Then they went to my brother’s pharmacy, dragged him out, butchered him, and burned his body,” Iormba went on to say.
“I trained Matthew through the University of Jos. He had just opened his store. They destroyed everything.”
Iormba and his surviving two wives narrowly escaped death by hiding in an animal cage, from where they silently witnessed the massacre.
“I heard them shouting, ‘Sun fi kowa da kudi da arziki a nan gari’ — ‘They are richer than anyone else in this town.’ That statement could only have come from those who knew us well,” he added. He said the attackers came from Giza, Kadarko, and Kwara in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
“They are hell-bent on taking over our land and Islamizing our people,” Iormba wept.
‘They Burned My Shop, My Only Child, and My Wife’
Another chilling account came from Mr. Michael Uchwen, who lost his wife, Dooshima, his only child, Terseer, and his foodstuff shop.
“We were sleeping around 11:15 p.m. when we heard gunshots. We tried to run, but the attackers caught my wife and son and butchered them. I hid under a tree at the market square and watched helplessly as they set them on fire.
“These Fulani men used to say they had no problem with us. They even ate and drank with us. But that night changed everythings,” Uchwen said to TruthNigeria.
He added that military personnel were stationed near St. Joseph Catholic Church but failed to respond to the attack
Yelewata, a predominantly Christian farming settlement, is located about 54 kilometers (33.5 miles) north of Makurdi, the capital of Benue State. The village is chiefly occupied by members of the Tiv ethnic group, one of the dominant tribes in Benue and in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region.
Mike Odeh James and Olikita Ekani Makurdi are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
