“The Fulani herdsmen came to our village as the church service was going on,” Yakubu Bala of Haske Baptist Church in Manini Tasha village, Kaduna state, told Morning Star News by text message. “They surrounded the church and started shooting. They came at about 9 a.m., and they rode on motorcycles. They shot at us randomly and at anyone they sighted.”

Bala said his uncle, Zakariah Dogonyaro, a medical doctor with the Kaduna State Ministry of Health, was shot dead and five worshippers were kidnapped in the attack in Chikun County, in the central part of the state. Among those abducted were Bala’s sister-in-law, stepmother and niece, he said.

A police spokesman, Mohammed Jalige, said in a press statement that in addition to the instant death of Dogonyaro, a man identified as Shehu Haruna was hospitalized for gunshot wounds, and that preliminary investigation found four people were missing and presumed abducted.

The Rev. Caleb Ma’aji, secretary of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), expressed condolences to family members of the deceased, the church and the Nigeria Baptist Convention and sadness over the inability of the Nigerian government to protect Christians.

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