VATICAN CITY (CHATNEWSTV) — Pope Leo XIV on Sunday condemned the killing of around 200 people in a massacre in Nigeria’s Benue State, calling for justice and peace in the violence-stricken region.
“On the night of June 13-14, a terrible massacre took place in the town of Yelwata, Guma Local Government Area, Benue State, Nigeria, in which about two hundred people were killed with extreme cruelty,” the pontiff said during his weekly Angelus address at the Vatican. “Most of them were internally displaced persons hosted by the local Catholic mission.”
The pope expressed solidarity with the victims and urged Nigerian authorities to restore security in the country’s Middle Belt, where ethnic and religious tensions have escalated in recent years.
“I pray that security, justice and peace will prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country so affected by various forms of violence,” Leo XIV said. “And I pray in a special way for the rural Christian communities of Benue State, who have been incessantly victims of violence.”
No group has officially claimed responsibility for the massacre, but local officials and civil society groups have pointed to suspected armed herders, who have been accused of similar attacks on farming communities across the region.
Benue State, often referred to as Nigeria’s “food basket,” has seen repeated clashes between largely Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim nomadic herders over land use, exacerbated by climate change and the government’s failure to intervene.
The Vatican’s statement marks one of the strongest international condemnations of the killings so far, adding pressure on the Nigerian government, which has faced criticism for its handling of rural insecurity.
