Elderly and sick Christians left behind as panic sends relatives fleeing.
By Mike Odeh James and Izhi Bitrus Adamu
(Yinagu, Adamawa State) The bloody toll for Easter Sunday in Nigeria is still underway.
Boko Haram fighters armed with heavy weapons encircled Yinagu village Easter Sunday evening, 7:00 p.m. local time, killing five Christians as residents fled the area.
The attack in Madagali county (Local Government Area) — 338 miles northeast of Abuja — came within hours of separate militia strikes in Benue, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Borno States. TruthNigeria’s verified civilian deaths for Easter weekend reached 55 across northern Nigeria, according to TruthNigeria’s 7-day attack summary of April 6, 2026. However, Adamawa State casualties were not included in that count.
The Adamawa killings were reported to Truth Nigeria directly by a survivor’s relative still in contact with those inside the village.
“The Boko Haram fighters stormed the village this evening and started shooting as usual. They killed five people already,” Mr. Luka Fali told Truth Nigeria.
Fali said his fleeing relations described attackers who arrived in large numbers carrying heavy weapons, surrounded the area and operated for more than two hours before retreating to the bush.
Aged Victims Left Stranded in Villages
Recurrent attacks across Madagali county have displaced hundreds of native Christians from their farming communities. Many elderly residents have remained behind, unable to travel.
“Baba Fali was crying on the phone this morning asking me to help bring him to Yola,” Fali told TruthNigeria, referring to his father Baba Isa Fali, a man in his sixties who lost the use of his legs following a previous attack on Sabon Gari community. “His displaced wife and children are in different towns and cities like Lagos and Jos, seeking menial jobs for survival.”
A second case involves Mrs. Hadija Jibrilla, a Christian woman in her late fifties. “Her family abandoned her in the Islamic terror-prone area to seek refuge in the city. She’s paralyzed. She can’t walk without using a stick,” Fali said.
Community Under Siege
Madagali county, the hometown of Adamawa State’s incumbent governor, has been struck repeatedly in recent months. The most recent documented attack, in February 2026, left at least 20 dead, with some accounts putting the toll higher. TruthNigeria reported that incident:
“The Boko Haram members were said to have repented. Many of them are with us in the society, while others have since joined the Nigerian military and other paramilitary agencies,” said Michael Dogara, an Adamawa-based independent investigative journalist who spoke with Truth Nigeria.
Dogara noted that more than 120,000 fighters and their family members have surrendered to Nigerian forces since 2015 under the government’s Operation Safe Corridor program, with many returning to their communities before completing formal rehabilitation. The Pulitzer Center has documented how many terrorists have deserted from insurgent groups but evaded the program and quietly re-entered Nigerian society:
“One of the reasons for the jihadists’ continued victory, particularly in Madagali county, is the fact that it shares a border with Borno and Cameroon, where you have the forest leading to the Sambisa Forest,” Dogara told Truth Nigeria.
Nigeria ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most severe persecution. Of 4,849 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,490 — 72 percent — were Nigerian.
U.S. lawmakers have cited that data directly. Sen. Ted Cruz introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act in 2025, which would require the State Department to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern and impose sanctions on officials who facilitate violence against Christians. Rep. Chris Smith has described the attacks as a “slow-motion war.”
Genocide Watch has described the violence against Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and northeast as a “genocidal crisis” in reports published through 2025 — the same geographic arc that includes Madagali county.
Barnabas Aid independently documented the February attack in Madagali county, corroborating Truth Nigeria’s reporting:
“The Madagali killings are under-reported by the media. It is a systemic, coordinated attack targeted at Christian farming communities who have no meaningful protection,” Dogara told TruthNigeria.
Nigeria’s federal government has not issued a statement on the Easter Sunday Yinagu attack, nor acknowledged Adamawa’s casualties in its official holy-weekend death toll.
Mike Odeh James and Izhi Bitrus Adamu are reporters with TruthNigeria.
