Taking up arms

About 4½ hours’ drive north of the capital city of Abuja, Nigeria, in the country’s Middle Belt region, lies the community of Dong. Along narrow dirt pathways winding through the village, women cook outdoors over open fires, preparing a local beer of fermented grain. Children play on the dusty trails while adults talk in clusters. Many of the men congregate near the beer sellers. Most appear to have no job.

Aside from the overcrowding in the village, extreme poverty is evident in the residents’ faded, worn clothing and the lack of possessions visible through the open doors of their homes. The local shop is a solitary window through which people can buy small quantities of soap or a few basic foodstuffs.

While this is an agricultural community, the farmers don’t have enough land, and families often go hungry.

Many of the people now living in Dong are displaced Christians from the nearby community of Mai Faran Ruwa in the Bokkos area of Plateau State. After centuries and generations of farming the same land as their ancestors, this community was driven out during attacks by Fulani herdsmen nine years ago.

“A lot of our people were killed,” said Yusuf Adamu, adding that many who weren’t killed during the attacks later died from illnesses exacerbated by trauma, like high blood pressure and stroke.

I met Adamu at a community meeting in the one-story ­concrete-block home of the village leader. Dressed in immaculate white traditional garments, the leader opened with a welcome and prayer in his native language, then turned the meeting over to Adamu, who told his community’s story.

When herdsmen attacked their village, the survivors fled to Dong. At first the displaced lived in a camp and depended on aid. But as assistance dried up, families scattered, some staying with friends while others built small huts. Previously subsistence farmers, the loss of farmland devastated the community economically. Before the attacks, Adamu described the area as a major agricultural center where families could grow nearly any crop they wanted.

The case of the community of Mai Faran Ruwa is one example of the violence and upheaval that continue to devastate middle Nigeria. Fulani herdsmen have repeatedly attacked and taken over villages and land traditionally belonging to Christians, either killing them or sending them into exile.

The conflict between Muslims and Christians across Nigeria claimed more than 7,000 Christian lives in 2025. According to Intersociety, another 1,402 Christians were killed and 1,800 abducted in just the first 96 days of 2026, from Jan. 1 through Easter Monday, April 6.

Down a hot, dusty street in Kaduna—several hours’ drive east from Dong and still in the Middle Belt—inside a compound protected by armed guards and surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire, more than 100 pastors and traditional leaders gathered recently to discuss how Christians should respond to the violence threatening their communities.

The Rev. Sunday Dabor, chairman of Riyom Local Government in Plateau State, said between 13 and 14 villages in the area have been wiped out, with residents forced to flee while Fulani militants occupy their homes and land.

“Last year in Bindi we buried about 27 people who were killed by the Fulani herdsmen,” Dabor said. The most recent victim hit even closer to home, as he was a fellow pastor. “Rev. Ayuba Choji, with his wife and two of his children. We buried them last Thursday.”

Bindi has endured more than 25 years of violence, Dabor said, beginning while he was still in college and continuing to the present day.

Now, farmers starting this year’s planting season face direct threats from armed Fulani groups, who have reportedly warned villagers not to cultivate their land or face attack. Some farmers want to organize their own defense forces, but Dabor said the communities are largely unarmed while Fulani militants often carry AK-47 assault rifles. In addition to lacking weapons, he said, the Christian community was raised to believe that violence is inconsistent with their faith. “Our religion didn’t teach us to kill anybody,” he said. “Most of the time, they will attack us, and we are on the defensive side. We will only defend ourselves.”

Although local residents continue appealing to the government for protection, Dabor said many people feel abandoned: “They are trying their best, but their best is not enough.” Christian communities are now wrestling with how to protect themselves.

The idea of carrying guns and arming Christian communities came up repeatedly in interviews with pastors, priests, and village leaders. But civilian gun ownership is heavily restricted in Nigeria, making it effectively impossible for most ordinary citizens to legally possess firearms.

“If you get local people with even a homemade gun, they want to arrest you,” Matthew Ishaya Audu said, confirming report after report from Christians who said local people were arrested for possessing muzzle-loaders and single-shot rifles they made themselves to protect their villages.

Audu has served as the archbishop of Jos in Plateau State since 2020. Like many Christians in Nigeria, Audu expressed frustration over the ongoing murders and kidnappings of Christians, as well as what he described as the lack of meaningful government and international intervention. He also criticized media narratives that dismiss claims of targeted attacks against Christians or deny that Christians are being systematically targeted.

“Quite a number of churches have been destroyed,” he said. “To me it makes no sense that when you go to church you have to carry a gun. But it has become necessary now.”

The leaders gathered in Kaduna want to share their stories with the world, hoping to keep their own congregants from sharing the fate of the displaced people in Dong.

Overall in Nigeria, ongoing violence has displaced 3.5 million people, according to the UN. Exacerbating understanding the problem is the fact that the UN only considers a person displaced “for as long as it takes to find a durable solution.” That means that the people in Dong are likely no longer included in the 3.5 million figure. But even though they are no longer at risk of imminent violent death, their means of livelihood is no longer possible, and they face hunger and poverty.

Now, because there is not enough farmland, many of Dong’s Christian families survive by doing dangerous and unreliable tin-mining work. But according to the men gathered in the meeting hall, Fulani militants now also control access to the mines. Several men chimed in with stories of being robbed on the way home from the tin mines and being forced to pay money to the Fulani in order to work there.

“They don’t let us farm, and now they won’t let us mine tin,” one man exclaimed. “What can we do?”

Despite the deadly opposition and their long absence, Adamu said the community remains determined to return home. Local leaders have already informed government officials and security forces of their intention to begin farming again on their ancestral land during the current rainy season, though they require armed protection to do so.

“We can’t continue like this,” Adamu said. “It has affected our children.”