9 Christian Family Members Killed in Targeted Attack

There are stories that disappear from the headlines almost as quickly as they arrive, and then there are stories that refuse to let go because of what they reveal. This is one of them.

Pastor Ezekiel Dachomo has spent years sounding the alarm about the killings of Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. He has traveled, spoken publicly, and pleaded with world leaders to pay attention to what he says is a sustained campaign of violence against Christian communities. Now, that campaign has struck his own family in the most devastating way imaginable.

According to Truth Nigeria, Fulani gunmen were searching for Dachomo during a July 11 attack. They didn’t find him.

Instead, they murdered nine members of his family.

The details are almost unbearable.

James Yohanna, one of only three survivors, described a night that unfolded minute by minute into unimaginable horror. He said it began with loud banging at his brother’s home before gunmen opened fire as his brother fled, wounding him in the arm and leg. Somehow, he managed to escape into hiding.

Then the attackers moved on.

About half an hour later, Yohanna heard gunshots outside his son’s home. He listened as his son pleaded, “Please don’t harm us.”

One of the attackers, speaking Hausa with what Yohanna identified as a Fulani accent, demanded to know where the “father of the house” was. According to Yohanna, they were looking for Pastor Dachomo.

When no one answered their demand, they opened fire.

“My son failed to answer, they shot him, shot his wife, and shot his two-month-old baby,” Yohanna recalled.

Now stay with me, because the story somehow becomes even more heartbreaking.