FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2025
Date: Thursday July 24, 2025
Time: 10:00 a.m. EST
Location: National Press Club, 529 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20045
Contact: Judd Saul, Executive Director, Equipping The Persecuted
Email: judd@equippingthepersecuted.org
RSVP HERE
What Really Happened at Yelewata?
(Washington) The tragic and preventable massacres of Christians in Nigeria will be explained by award-winning war correspondent Lara Logan at 10:00 a.m., July 24 at the National Press Club in Washington.
A moving and original documentary film by Iowa-based humanitarian Judd Saul will complement Logan’s message by telling the unreported story of a cruel massacre of 270 Christians in the village of Yelewata on June 14. Worse: Nigerian security forces stood by and failed to intervene.
Logan’s message and Judd’s film will allow attendees to see the Nigerian tragedy with unprecedented clarity.
RSVP here to attend the press conference.
That atrocity sent shockwaves reverberating from Brussels to Washington, D.C. due to the pathbreaking reporting by Saul’s investigative platform, TruthNigeria.com, a project of Saul’s humanitarian NGO, EquippingthePersecuted.org.
In the film eyewitnesses and citizen journalists reporting from Yelewata itself will present Yelewata as a textbook model of a form of terrorism that could one-day engulf all West Africa.
Yelewata native Franc Utoo, a graduate student in Oklahoma, will be on hand to present what his relatives have told him about the brutal murder of 27 of his cousins in the attack.
Learn the Facts:
On June 13-14, 2025, local Nigerian journalists reported that more than 200 Fulani ethnic militia attacked the agrarian Christian community of Yelewata in Benue State, Nigeria. It’s considered
one of the deadliest assaults in Nigeria’s ongoing wave of persecution against Christians.
Victims were locked inside market stalls, doused with gasoline, and burned alive while soldiers stationed nearby failed to act.
The attack happened despite a Nigerian Department of State Security (DSS) intelligence memo dated May 13, 2025, that warned of the planned attack.
Military forces arrived more than five hours after the attackers left;
Survivors, local journalists, and eyewitnesses now reveal that government officials fabricated a
false narrative of a diversionary attack to conceal military negligence.
Yelewata residents report that they were told to repeat this false story under threat of retaliation.
Learn What Nigerian Officials Will Never Say:
- Leaked intelligence documents proving the Nigerian government had advanced warnings of the Yelewata attack.
- Eyewitness testimonies confirming that military personnel refused to intervene despite their proximity to the massacre.
- Evidence of systematic underreporting of casualties and deliberate suppression of press access to displacement camps.
The Yelewata Massacre: A National and International Crisis
The Yelewata massacre is not an isolated incident—it is part of a systematic, ongoing campaign of religious cleansing in Nigeria, according to Saul, the executive director of Equipping the Persecuted.
Nigeria remains the world’s deadliest country for Christians, as reported by the World Watch List 2025.
- 3,100 Christians were killed and 2,830 abducted in Nigeria between October 2023 and September 2024.
- These figures account for 69 percent of Christians killed worldwide during the same period.
- More than 3.3 million people are now internally displaced in Nigeria, many of them Christians driven from their ancestral lands.
- An estimated 1,000 Christian women and girls were raped or sexually assaulted, and 10,000 Christians suffered physical or mental abuse.
Learn Who the Killers Are:
The Islamic Fulani Ethnic Militia—a coalition of Fulani militants and armed bandit groups—are responsible for approximately 80 percent of Christian deaths in Nigeria. Boko Haram and ISWAP
(Islamic State West Africa Province) are responsible for 15 percent, with the remaining 5 percent committed by other jihadist groups.
“This concentration of violence under a unified threat confirms what human rights observers have described as a systematic, coordinated campaign of religious persecution and demographic warfare,” according to Saul.
“This is not a series of isolated conflicts or land disputes,” said Saul, “This is an organized campaign of Christian genocide. The world
cannot ignore this anymore.”
Major Findings to Be Presented:
The Yelewata massacre is one of several major coordinated attacks in 2025, including:
- Palm Sunday Massacre (April 13, 2025): Over 50 Christians killed near Jos, Plateau State, as they returned from church services.
- Holy Week Massacres (May 2025): At least 87 Christians killed across Benue State, including attacks in the hometown of Bishop Wilfred Anagbe after his testimony to the U.S. Congress.
- Plateau State Siege (May 25-29, 2025): Coordinated strikes across six villages south of Jos displaced thousands.
- The Widow’s Cry (June 2025): Widows protested near army checkpoints after hundreds of husbands were killed without military protection.
International Response Urgently Needed
Despite promises from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, the situation has worsened. The Nigerian government continues to mischaracterize attacks as “communal clashes” and underreports Christian casualties while consistently failing to prosecute perpetrators.
International religious freedom experts and U.S. lawmakers have called for:
- Restoring Nigeria’s Country of Particular Concern (CPC) designation under U.S. law.
- Targeted sanctions against Nigerian officials who fail to protect vulnerable populations.
- Increased humanitarian aid and security assistance for persecuted Christian communities.
A Humanitarian Catastrophe
Conditions in Nigeria’s displacement camps remain catastrophic. More than 3.3 million Nigerians are now displaced. Food, water, medical care, and shelter are in critically short supply. Journalists and aid workers are regularly denied access to these camps by government security forces.
“Nigeria’s Christians are not collateral damage—they are the targets. This is organized, this is strategic, and it must be stopped,” Saul said. “The cost of inaction is measured in lives lost, cultures erased, and a future stolen.”
