…As 4,000 Civilians Scramble for Shelter Nearby
By Izhi Bitrus Adamu
JOS, Nigeria — Hours after TruthNigiera posted a warning Thursday (Oct. 15) of impending terror attacks in Southeast Adamawa State, terrorists believed to be Boko Haram (Western Learning Forbidden) militiamen overran the town of Dzangola Kilba in Gombi County, killing 30 civilians, according to locals posting on FB.
An eyewitness who spoke with Truth Nigeria said terrorists killed Evangelist David Barnabas, with the Church of the Brethren (EYN), by locking him into his house and setting fire to it.
The latest assault on Dzangola Kilba, a remote farming settlement tucked in Guyaku District, Gombi county (L.G. A) began Thursday evening, according to eyewitnesses speaking to TruthNigeria.The remote hilltop village sits on porous, ungoverned Savanna forest.
Thursday night’s invasion by fighters believed to be Boko Haram lasted through the night and is the fourth time in six months the same Christian battle ground in Hong and Gombi counties (local government areas) have been hit.
The terrorists operated unchallenged from 9:00 p.m. Thursday, October 15 to 5:00 a.m. Oct. 16. They took food, domestic animals and cooking utensils to their stronghold just miles away.
This area has faced an ongoing wave of violence throughout the year, according to media reports. Dzangola was previously struck on September 6, 2026, in an attack that left 12 residents dead, a church destroyed, and shops looted.
Earlier, on April 26, ISWAP opened fire on a football pitch in Guyaka, killing 33 bystanders, according to HUMAngle.
Dzangola Kilba is predominantly Christian, and its people are now part of over 4,000 residents displaced from Gunyaku, Tela-Bala, Sabon-Gari and Nzangula, now sleeping on mats in Yola and Gombi town. Farmers told TruthNigeria their abandoned farms are ripe for harvest.
Malam Shehu Inuwa, who fled from Dzangola Kilba to Gombi town with 6 members of his family, tracked back to his abandoned farm in Dzangola Kilba to harvest some bushels of rice before scampering away. “Fulani people grazed on my farm, I have nothing left to feed my displaced family,” Shehu lamented, adding that he escaped narrowly. More than 4000 residents are now displaced, he said.
“About 50 soldiers and forest guards came after the September killing” in Dzangola in September where 12 people were killed. “We thought that finally, the government remembered us and the surrounding villages. But by nightfall on Friday, October 9, the soldiers and guards left. We watched their trucks go,” said Inuwa. “Now our maize, rice and beans are still standing, but Fulani cattle are eating them in our own farms.”
That withdrawal explains why many fled before the October 15 attack, according to locals.
Dzangola Kilba lies roughly 450 miles (540 to 600 kilometers) northeast of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory or ,about 13 to 15 hours by road.
Many local farmers had fled days before the Oct. 15 attack, taking note of the unexplained withdrawal of soldiers and forest guards.
From Fulani Muslim Clearance Attacks to Boko Haram Conquest
The roots of the land invasions and Islamist subjugation of Christians traces back to 2014, some locals tell TruthNigeria. The coming of Boko Haram in 2009 and the emergence of Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) in 2016 only gave it the bold phase of Islamic Jihad Agenda, according to Mr. Wesley Aliyu, a community leader from Hong. When Boko Haram laid claim to most of Adamawa State in 2014, the Christians of Adamawa had to defend against violent attack by Fulani-tribe herdsmen seeking to expand territorial dominance – what the Nazi-era Germans once called “Lebensraum.”
“Fulani ethnic militia beheaded a Christian in his farm in 2014. Before then there was farm destruction by Fulani herders, but we mark that beheading as the beginning of Fulani killings in the region,” Aliyu said.
This account tracks with documented waves of violence that year, when district heads and scores were feared dead as Fulani militia attacked Adamawa, at least in the reporting of PM News in 2014, and according to Punch in 2017.
Second-generation Jihadists
“The Boko Haram members we knew in 2014 gave way to their youngs. These are second-generation, children born inside the forest with the ideology, raised with guns against Christians. They were born into it. To them, killing is normal, like farming is to us,” said Mr. Mark Dogara, a native of Gombi.
Security analysts say what is happening in Hong-Gombi is not a simple herder-farmer clash but a joint operation by Islamists reclaiming territory they once controlled. The Kopre Mountain camp destroyed on August 27 is being rebuilt by surviving fighters, who scattered after air interdiction. The pattern is clear: attack military bases to secure the corridor, loot Christian settlements to deny return, and expand camps. When Christians flee, grain fields become grazing fields and zircon-rich hills become ungoverned.
If Tela-Bala does not return to the farm this October, Adamawa loses its grain belt. If EYN No.1 and No.2 do not rebuild, Christianity retreats from Adamawa State.
Izhi Bitrus Adamu is a conflict reporter for Truth Nigeria.
