By Luka Binniyat and Mike James Odeh
(Kaduna) – They were kidnapped on Easter Sunday and have been whipped in the forest for 8 days. Now they face a death sentence.
Thirty-seven Christian farmers are at the mercy of some of Nigeria’s most heartless criminals — terrorist kidnappers who hail from the Fulani tribe. Their captors will kill them unless they get $20,000 per head “very soon” from their relatives in Kachia county, Southern Kaduna, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, TruthNigeria has exclusively learned.
These armed Fulani terrorists invaded the sleepy farm town of Ariko during a church service on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026), shooting 7 men dead and abducting 68. Later, 31 escaped leaving 37 in the hands of the terrorists as reported by Vanguard. At least 24 of the 37 hostages are adult women.
The hostages are believed to be under guard in a forest compound similar to the infamous hostage holding camps west of the town of Rijana in Chikun County. At the multiple hostage camps linked to Rijana, hundreds of hapless hostages suffer for weeks or months under forest canopy until their relatives pay a required ransom. The hostages who do not get ransomed out either die in captivity or suffer execution, according to survivors speaking to TruthNigeria. The conditions of torture in these camps are severe enough to be considered war crimes, according to Gregory Stanton, founder of the Genocide Watch research organization in Virginia.
Mr. Reuben Buhari, a native of the village, as well as a former media aide to a Kaduna governor, told TruthNigeria that the terrorists are demanding a ransom of N1 billion Naira ($739,721) or else the hostages would be shot.
A video available to TruthNigeria now viral on Facebook, apparently made by the terrorists, shows the 37 hostages in a bush, but the terrorists never showed their faces.
The video collaborated that the terrorists deliberately chose to kidnap women and children, as only 4 adult males are paraded in the picture.
In the video, the terrorists posed themselves as victims of the villagers tattled to the Nigerian army who then shot at the terrorists (very likely a false claim according to local sources in Kachia). In the transcript below, an elderly man, identified as “Alhaji Sunday,” 54, attempts to defer the accusations of the terrorist accusers.
Here’s the transcription below:
Sunday: We were caught and brought here from Ariko.
Terrorist: From Ariko?
Sunday: Yes, from Ariko
Terrorist: Which date was that
Sunday: On Easter Sunday, on the 5th (April 2026).
Terrorist: How many are you?
Sunday: We are 37
Terrorist: You’re really 37 in numbers?
Hostages: Yes!
Terrorist: Do you know why we caught you?
Hostages: No, we don’t know.
Terrorist: You don’t know why?
Hostages: We caught you because you always guide soldiers from your village to come and kill us. You the soldiers. Those ones close to your village.
You always bring them to kill herders that stray into your community. You been doing this for two years ago and even this year you have not stopped.
They usually go through your community to graze, but while returning you would ambush them and kill them. That is why we caught you. That’s your offense.
Now we are looking for money from you. But you are trying to dribble us. The truth now is that you produce the money very soon, we start killing you. So, there’s no way we can set you free just like that. Since we refuse to ignore what we have done to us and we came after you, that means that we have no intention of forgiving. So, it’s either you produce the money or we start killing you.
Sunday: We heard you. I just want to plead for more time so that we can make calls and beg for money.
Speaking exclusively to TruthNigeria, Buhari, a native of Ariko and former Press Secretary to Sir Ibrahim Yakowa, late governor of Kaduna state, Buhari told our correspondent that the terrorists have placed a ransom demand of N1 billion Naira ($70,000 dollars).
“They actually called and they have made a demand of one billion Naira,” he told our correspondent.
“That’s very insane demand because we cannot raise that money even in a million years,” he said.
“We have been paying ransom on some of our relations kidnapped in other villages; we cannot access most of our farms because of these terrorists and we cannot even raise livestock because they would come and steal them,” Buhari told TruthNigeria.
Kachia county, which is Christian majority with an estimated population of over 400,000 today, is mainly Christian.
But large-scale kidnapping, killings and invasion have hollowed out and bankrupted rural communities.
The chairman of Kachia County (Local Government Area), Dr. Manzon Maigari, lamented last week that 74 communities in the LGA have fled their residences, leaving him with a humanitarian crisis.
Luka Binniyat and Mike James Odeh are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
