The Rev. Joshua Ajiya, ERCC pastor killed in Kaduna state, Nigeria on Feb. 26, 2026. (Facebook)

ABUJA, Nigeria (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Suspected Fulani herdsmen on Feb. 26 killed a pastor and abducted other Christians in Kaduna state, Nigeria, area residents said.

The Rev. Joshua Ajiya of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ (ERCC) was killed in predominantly Christian Dorowa Maitozo village, Sanga County at about 8:30 p.m. in an attack in which dozens of other Christians were kidnapped, said Pastor Emmanuel Stephen, a resident of the area.

“Fulani bandits attacked Dorowa community in Maitozo , located in Ninzo Chiefdom in Sanga Local Police Area of Kaduna state,” Pastor Stephen said. “The attack tragically led to the killing of Rev. Joshua Ajiya, a pastor of the ERCC Church congregation in Dorowa community under ERCC Randa Conference. He had served the church in the Dorowa community for only two months before he was killed by Muslim Fulani bandits.”

Dorowa has been facing repeated security challenges recently, he said.

Resident Thomas Hassan said several villagers were missing following the attack.

“May God comfort the affected families and continue to protect our communities during this difficult time,” Hassan said.

The assault came on the heels of a similar incident in Arak village, also in Sanga County, where more than 30 Christians were kidnapped the night of Jan. 5. Fulani herdsmen killed two Christians in the attack, residents said. Among those abducted was an Averik Arak, elderly mother of one of the two Christians slain, Kefas Habila Averik.

More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.

“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.

In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.

The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.

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