US President Donald Trump described Abu-Bilal al-Minuki as “second in command of ISIS globally.” The US and Nigeria also conducted additional air strikes against ISIS forces on Sunday.

(Photo courtesy of Unknown Nations)

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations hopes for a little more stability in Nigeria now that al-Minuki is reportedly gone.

“This individual was largely behind a lot of the organization and the instabilities — not just in Nigeria, but this has spilled over into neighboring countries,” he says. (More on al-Minuki here.)

Other leaders within ISIS will fill the gap left by al-Minuki soon enough. But there’s something more Kelley doesn’t want us to miss. 

“The encouraging thing about this that we haven’t seen in the last 15 years is a robust involvement from the Nigerian government and military,” Kelley says of the joint Nigeria-US operation.

“A lot of the people that we know that we’ve spoken to are encouraged that there’s accountability finally taking place. The Christian church is encouraged today. They’ve been praying for accountability.”

Nigeria’s response to Islamic insurgents has often been criticized. Government leaders maintain that extremists target people of all faiths, not mainly Christians. Yet according to Open Doors, more Christians were killed in Nigeria between October 2024 and September 2025 than in the rest of the world combined. Of the 4,849 deaths recorded in their reporting period, 3,490 were believers in Nigeria. 

Find your place in the story

Regardless of political debate, Kelley says the need for gospel workers remains urgent. Nigeria’s estimated 237 million population is divided nearly in half between Muslims and Christians.

“This [joint operation] is putting [Nigeria] on the front lines and to the front of our attention, so that we can be praying for northern Nigeria,” Kelley says. 

Among northern Nigeria’s unreached people groups are the Fulani, the Hausa, and the Kanuri. 

“Pray for laborers that would be sent forth into these [northern] areas,” says Kelley. “There are 100 million Muslims in northern Nigeria, and well over 95% of them have never heard the gospel message.”

Many of these missionaries could come from southern Nigeria, which Kelley explains is predominantly Christian. 

Pray also for gospel resources and godly leaders to reach into the north. 

“We need to pray for resources like our solar-powered audio Bibles in the Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri languages that can be sent in there,” says Kelley. “We need to send mature leaders who are strong in the Word of God, who understand the Quran, who can help educate and lead these people to Christ.” 

The header image is a stock photo of a region in north central Nigeria, courtesy of Mathias Owa Martins via Unsplash. 

Floyd Brobbel with The Voice of the Martyrs Canada says, “Their report claims that since 2009, at least 190,000 Nigerians were killed, and about 70% of that would be Christians. So there seems to be a very clear targeting of the Christian community in northern Nigeria.”

(Photo courtesy Voice of the Martyrs USA)

The report lays out how Nigeria has been hiding the genocide of Christians through misinformation campaigns and misleading narratives. Instead, government officials have described the violence as regional instability and even attributed it to climate change.

“The Christian cry within the North that our government is not doing anything to counteract these problems is true, and it’s well documented.”

Boko Haram and Fulani extremists attack Christian communities and others who stand in the way of their goal to establish an Islamic caliphate.

Brobbel encourages believers around the world to take action for our Nigerian brothers and sisters in Christ.

“We need to be raising a voice and asking our governments to hold the Nigerian government accountable to these things that are happening in their country. Like, what are they doing to counteract these problems?”

(Photo courtesy VOM USA)

Pray also for the persecuted Church in northern Nigeria to be salt and light, so they can reach their persecutors for Christ.

Brobbel urges, “We really need to pray for those that remain and for those that flee, that they would be effective and bold in their Christian faith and continue to proclaim the Gospel courageously, because this is how things change.”

He also asks Christians to pray for Muslim extremists in northern Nigeria, that they would:

• encounter God’s Word and have visions of Jesus.
• have their hearts softened and eyes opened to biblical truth.
• be held accountable for their actions.
• give their lives ultimately to Christ.

Get involved with VOM Canada at vomcanada.com/engage.

Header photo: Nigerian believers pray for intervention. (Photo courtesy of VOM Canada)

If signed into law, the bill would cut aid to Nigeria in half… unless its government meets three conditions. Those conditions hinge on stopping what US lawmakers are calling a genocide against Christians in Nigeria. Here are those three requirements:

• “taking effective steps to prevent and respond to violence and hold perpetrators accountable”
• “prioritizing resources to support victims of such violence, including internally displaced persons”
• “actively facilitating the safe return, resettlement, and reconstruction of communities impacted by the violence.”

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says that the nomadic Fulani people have become the main attackers of believers in Nigeria. Yet they are more than just enemies. 

“They’re fiercely opposed to the gospel. Yet what makes them very significant is they occupy more than 12 countries throughout Central Africa,” he says. “The largest concentration of Fulani happened to be in the country of Nigeria, where a lot of these atrocities that we’re speaking about are taking place.”

These disciples of Christ are passionately sharing God’s Word in North Eastern Nigeria.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Unknown Nations)

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa reports that the Fulani Ethnic Militias were responsible for nearly half of the 36,056 civilian deaths they documented across Nigeria between October 2019 and September 2024. The violence has only continued since then.

(Read a May 2026 report on Fulani militants from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom here.)

Kelley says the clash comes down to Fulani herdsmen and Christian landowners.

“[The conflict zone] has largely been an area in the northern part, but as grazing lands have changed, and the Fulani are moving into territories further south, that’s what’s causing the increase of these hostilities,” he says. “But they’re very aggressive. I mean, you don’t tell a Fulani ‘no.’ If you own land, and they come through and trash your land, the farmers are not happy about that. There’s a confrontation.”

What’s the answer?

The population divide between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria is right around 50/50. Kelley says the biggest frustration is over the Nigerian government often looking the other way as Christians are killed. 

“You’re talking about 100 million Christians are saying, ‘When is the government going to finally hold these people accountable?’” he says. 

The gospel is the answer. Kelley notes that some of Unknown Nations’ best missionaries are former Fulani militants who have had an encounter with Christ. Pray for more such men and women. 

“Yes, the people that are terrorizing, the people that are killing, they are our target, and we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them,” Kelley says. “We’ve heard so many stories of Fulani coming to know Christ. It’s the Apostle Paul’s story.”

One way to reach the Fulani is through audio resources, since they are oral learners. That’s why Unknown Nations has distributed thousands of solar-powered audio Bibles, micro SD cards, and their Bible app into northern Nigeria, “because they gather around and they listen to the Word of God, and God changes their hearts,” says Kelley.

“Praying for the same-culture missionaries that are Hausa, that are Fulani, that are Kanuri is going to be how we reach northern Nigeria with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Header photo: Audio Bibles bring the Gospel to people from oral cultures. (Photo courtesy of Unknown Nations)

While global deaths from terror have dropped in the last year, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the IS-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the DRC continue to plague those countries with terrorist activity. 

Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says location is not coincidental, as terrorists have a clear strategy.

“They look for vulnerable areas: places where they can create more strongholds with their radical ideology. Northern Nigeria is a representation of that. [Democratic Republic of Congo], because of its instability, is representative of it.”

Kelley says the absence of government response in these areas emboldens the terrorists. 

For the church’s part, many Christians in Nigeria’s south struggle to empathize with or minister to their northern Muslim neighbors. But there, in predominantly Muslim communities, the believers have a different outlook. 

“If you go to the North,” Kelley says, “and you meet someone who came out of Islam who would be a Muslim Background Believer, when they come to faith in Christ, they become infernos for the Gospel.”

He points out that the believers’ insistence on staying in their area mobilizes ministry partners to join the work. 

“We constantly have to move missionaries. The reality is that’s where the mission need is. It’s not in the South. It’s in the North.” 

Meanwhile, in the DRC, ongoing conflict and humanitarian need further expose the vulnerable citizens of that nation. Kelley says where the battleground exists, our mission should follow. 

“Where are the battlelines? Where is the threat coming? That’s where we need to mobilize and deploy our resources, which in this case is Northeast Congo,” he says. “That’s the location that people listening to this, praying for this, need to center their targeted resources: prayer, finances, personnel.” 

The citizens of these countries are suffering, and they represent the least of these Jesus talks about in Matthew 25:40. Without diminishing the call to meet their physical needs, Kelley reminds us of another instruction from Jesus: one in Matthew 28:18 – 20. 

“We need to look at these places and then ask the next question, which is, ‘What is the nation or people group being affected? Have they had a Gospel witness, or have they not?’” Kelley says. “Because you could be responding to a humanitarian need in a place that’s 95% Christian. That’s wonderful. No one is telling you to stop doing that. But that can’t be your only expression of the Great Commission.” 

Please pray for Nigeria and DRC, including the various people groups represented within these countries. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers, and pray for a plentiful harvest as a result. 

Please also pray for the families, communities, and nations affected by global terrorism. Ask the Lord for protection, courage, and resilience as believers live out their faith in the toughest of circumstances. 

Pray also for the terrorists, whose hearts of darkness mirror those of every sinner in need of our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ. 

May the Lord be glorified as these souls find hope in Him!

Above image courtesy of Prince Kwembe via Unsplash. Featured image courtesy of Ian Panelo via Pexels.

According to a March report on the DRC from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, attacks by the ADF such as the April 1 incident in Bafwakoa have escalated in the majority-Christian, resource-rich nation.

Photo of North Kivu and Ituri Provinces courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“Congo has unfortunately been in this perpetual spiral of instabilities for decades,” says Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations. “And you know, the last five years in particular, they see an opportunity, and so they’re trying to move into these areas, which are heavily Christian areas.”

The DRC’s situation is not the same as Nigeria’s. In Nigeria, there is a sharper divide between Muslims and Christians within the country’s north. But in the DRC, that element of antagonism is less prevalent. 

“More of the commonality that the DRC and Nigeria have is the instability, and so it’s opportunities for them to really establish a Muslim beachhead,” says Kelley. “[In northern Nigeria,] it’s had the Boko Haram activity, the Fulani herdsmen. They’re literally trying to eradicate Christianity in the north.”

But Kelley notes that in the DRC, the ADF isn’t targeting only Christians. 

“These are just kind of almost generic brutalities, killing, raiding villages, trying to take ground, trying to get people to just pack up their bags and move on so they can control territory,” Kelley says, “because again, this is some of the wealthiest real estate, not just in Congo, not just in Africa, but in the world.”

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Photo courtesy of Johnnathan Tshibangu via Unsplash)

Yet statistically speaking, believers do endure the brunt of ADF attacks. That’s because 95 percent of the DRC’s population identifies as Christian, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom report. Recent attacks on Christians took place in March and February. There are likely more that have not made it to mainstream media. But the big picture trend is clear: According to a report from International Christian Concern, the ADF claims that it has killed more than 700 Christians since December 2024. 

“It’s spiritual warfare, attacking God’s people in a place where the gospel, in the midst of all the instability, has grown tremendously. It’s a real success story,” says Kelley.

Ask God to raise up more Christians to serve as gospel workers in the DRC.

“It’s not the first place that a missionary is going to want to go. But missionaries are being mobilized in the Congo right now,” says Kelley. 

“We have a training center near Kinshasa that’s mobilizing missionaries to go into French-speaking areas. But when you see these kinds of things happening [attacks on Christian communities], they’ll be able to divert resources and go into that area. So pray for training efforts.”

Header photo: Portrait of a Taabwa Catholic priest at the historic mission in the city of Moba, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Photo courtesy of IMB)

Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA (VOM) says, “People came in on bikes and motorcycles, opened fire. The initial reports were at least 30 people killed. I think that number is going to rise as some were badly injured.”

This coordinated attack targeted believers, as the affected community in northern Jos is almost entirely Christian.

“The gunmen were yelling, ‘Allahu akbar,’ or ‘Allah is great,’ as they were conducting this attack,” Nettleton says. “So there clearly was an Islamist ideology that was driving this – and the fact that it was on Palm Sunday, I don’t think that is insignificant in this story as well.”

(Photo courtesy Voice of the Martyrs USA)

Northern Nigeria remains a hotspot for Christian persecution. That reality makes it difficult for believers to discern between empty threats and imminent danger.

Nettleton says, “Our Nigerian contact said there had been threats in Jos. Even in the last two or three weeks, there had been threats made against Christians, against churches…. The threat level is always elevated. So [it means] differentiating between, ‘Is this sort of a regular threat? Or is this really serious? Do we need to pay extra attention to this?'”

Boko Haram and Fulani militants frequently carry out attacks on Christians in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north. While neither group has officially claimed the attack in Jos, Christian holidays often become opportunities for Islamist violence.

“One of the things that we…at The Voice of the Martyrs try to do is bang the drum for us to remember Christians are at extra risk on these holy days – on Christmas, on Easter. During times when there are a lot of Christians gathering, the gatherings are obviously known. They’re very public, and so the risk is greater in these holidays.”

(Photo courtesy of VOM USA)

With Easter quickly approaching, the Church in Nigeria needs your prayers.

Nettleton urges, “Think about brothers and sisters who are worshiping and celebrating the same resurrection we are, but they’re doing it in a place where they are in danger, where the threat is very real to them – to pray for them, to remember them as Hebrews 13:3 tells us to do. I think, honestly, that adds a depth to our celebration of the resurrection.”

Header photo courtesy of VOM USA.

Last week Thursday, Boko Haram fighters also struck a town in northern Nigeria and killed at least 25 people.

We spoke with Unknown Nations’ Greg Kelley, who was recently in Nigeria, where the ministry supports Gospel outreach efforts.

He says, “What I heard is that a whole lot of these insurgents have scattered into neighboring countries like Chad and Niger to sort of take cover. But we can’t be misguided. They are organized. They wait for their moments. They target very vulnerable targets like schools, hospitals, [and] very remote areas as they’re doing the kidnapping and attacking, and it’s a great frustration.”

(Photo courtesy of Moses Adeyemi/Unsplash)

Ongoing terror attacks in Nigeria can fade in and out of the news cycle. But Kelley encourages the global Body of Christ to remain diligent in praying for and calling attention to these tragedies.

“We’ve just been desensitized to the atrocities that are going on there,” says Kelley. “We’re talking about a country where more people are killed for their faith in Christ than the rest of the world combined, which is a staggering statistic.”

The problem goes deeper than regional and political powers. Kelley says it’s ultimately a spiritual conflict.

Nigeria is a unique country in its religious landscape. The population is roughly split between Christians and Muslims, with most Christians living in the South, and majority Muslims in the North. “All this carnage that’s taking place is largely in the majority Muslim areas where they’re trying to eradicate Christianity.”

“There’s a vibrant, dynamic Church in the South that is largely not engaged in reaching out and taking the Gospel to the North, and that is really a massive issue in Nigeria,” Kelley says.

“We need to see the largely Christian populations — the Igbo people, the Yoruba people that live in the South — mobilizing themselves and going up to the Fulani, the Kanuri, the Hausa — which are the three dominant people groups in the North that are 99% Muslim.”

Kelley believes that, ultimately, this hesitancy from Christians in the South to reach into the North stems from complacency.

(Image courtesy of Unknown Nations)

“I think that they have been convinced that missions among themselves and planting churches in the south is a form of the Great Commission. And I wouldn’t argue that. We always want to have outreach in our communities…. But they have not gotten into their minds that the ends of the earth is the northern part, and [they need to] mobilize resources in that direction, send missionaries in that direction, [and] distribute Bibles in that direction.”

Despite the dangers, our Christian brothers and sisters in northern Nigeria are faithful witnesses for Christ.

“Those Christians are white hot for the Gospel!” Kelley says. “They understand persecution, they understand perseverance, they understand dealing with adversity, and being courageous and bold. They understand all those things. They don’t leave because they know that if they leave, who is going to bring the Gospel into the north?”

Please pray for believers in northern Nigeria to remain steadfast and protected as they follow Christ. Pray for courage and obedience among Christians in southern Nigeria to take the Gospel north. And pray for God to soften hearts among Nigeria’s unreached Muslim communities, drawing many to saving faith in Jesus.

You can learn more about Unknown Nations’ ministry in Nigeria at unknownnations.com.

Header photo: (Photo courtesy of Nnaemeka Ugochukwu/Unsplash)

“This is not surprising in a lot of countries that we work in where there are attacks of this nature, abductions, and things like that,” says Floyd Brobbel with Voice of the Martyrs, Canada. “We don’t always get the information right away, so, often we sit on a number of stories and we wait to see, ‘Where do the real numbers [land], and how does the story play out?'”

He adds, “In Nigeria, though, it’s been fairly consistent that the reporting has come quickly and it’s been verified. In this particular case, it seems that stories are not being verified as quickly.”

Disinformation tactics could be at work. Brobbel says some might want to downplay a real kidnapping to avoid the chance of another United States airstrike. But others might want that type of intervention.

“Part of the issue is that we’re dealing with a very volatile region. Many of these places are remote, so they’re not easy to get to [in order] to verify quickly,” Brobbel says. 

The bigger picture of Nigeria

Questions about the weekend mass abduction aside, kidnappings and killings are a core part of the strategy of Islamic militants in Nigeria.

Video screenshot of Rev. Gideon Dawel courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs Canada.

“What I think we’re looking at is acts of terrorism within northern Nigeria meant to destabilize the region, promote fear, gain control, and further create this religious animosity that is happening there,” Brobbel says. (Listen to the story of one Nigerian pastor here.)

There’s another layer to Nigeria’s security issues, not only the clash between Islam and Christianity. One missionary to Nigeria told Brobbel that even posting guards can’t prevent attacks. 

“It’s not like you can look at somebody and right away say, ‘Oh, that’s a Boko Haram fighter,’ or ‘That’s a Fulani herdsman,'” he says. “They blend in. They look alike, and then suddenly they can form and gather together.”

On top of that, when an attack is over, government authorities don’t always cooperate to bring justice.

Brobbel says the Nigerian Church continues to grow and to reach out in love to neighbors, but these believers are caught in a difficult time. 

“Not all Christians respond in a godly way — in a biblical way — to these attacks,” says Brobbel. That’s why VOM Canada helps to equip Nigerian believers with a theology of persecution, in addition to practical aid. (More on VOM Canada ministry projects in Nigeria here.) 

Find your place in the story

(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs Canada)

Please pray every day that God will strengthen the Nigerian church to stand in faith, “that leaders in Nigeria would not be tempted to take up arms and fight with the weapons of the world, but would recognize that their battle is not against flesh and blood,” says Brobbel. 

“Pray for practical relief to be able to get into the country. There are Christians in IDP camps. There are food shortages and a hunger crisis that’s happening there because of the instability in the region. Farmers aren’t being able to get into their field to cultivate their crops.”

Finally, please take action by contacting your government representatives to raise awareness of what’s happening in Nigeria. Ask them to use their influence on Nigeria’s behalf.

Learn more about Nigeria at VOM Canada’s website.

Header photo of people praying in Nigerian church (photo courtesy of David Iloba via Pexels).

Helen Williams with World Missionary Press recently attended Every Home For Christ’s One Africa Conference, where she connected with national directors from several countries that WMP works to provide Scripture booklets to.

In northern Nigeria, where there is open persecution, ministry work is pivoting to cities to avoid Muslim resistance in villages. But the Nigerian director said people in these villages remain unreached and without access to the Bible.

(Photo courtesy of World Missionary Press)

“He said, ‘In the cities, they’re able to openly distribute material and minister and have outreach,’” Williams says. “But his heart was for the villages, because they don’t have the Word anyway, and the resistance is so strong that it’s dangerous.”

The ministry in Nigeria is finding new ways to operate, which can involve finding hosts near villages or conducting gospel conversations under a tree.

“There’s a lot of trying to protect the believers, and yet encourage them and continue to do the work,” Williams says.

In the Goma area of the Democratic Republic of Congo, people are losing their homes and fleeing the country, but despite these challenges, the work continues.

The director in the DRC said, “This is a challenge for us, but we know that the Lord wants us to continue the work.”

Williams says, again, the work continues; it is just finding new ways to share the gospel with people.

Williams says the DRC director was very open about how the conflict is affecting them. “He said, ‘This is a challenge for us, but we know that the Lord wants us to continue the work.’”

In other countries, including Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea, where it is dangerous to distribute Scripture, the work continues as well.

“These are areas that they’ve not been able to come to us in the open as of late. They’ve been getting their material from Ethiopia, but they came up to us and said, ‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,'” Williams says. 

Despite scary resistance, particularly in Eritrea, Scripture is still making its way into the hands of people and changing lives.

Please pray for our brothers and sisters who are experiencing persecution in Africa. Pray for wisdom and protection as they minister to their persecutors and others who do not yet know Christ.

Header Photo Provided by World Missionary Press

“It’s unclear how involved the government negotiations were,” says Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations, “but there was definitely some pressure that was put on these kidnappers.” 

Kelley says the November 21 abduction is “an example of constant disruption of the gospel, because we regularly get calls [from indigenous missionary partners]where we have to emergency evacuate or pull people from one place to another.”

(Stock photo from Lagos, Nigeria courtesy of Doug Linstedt via Unsplash)

Despite the release of these 100 kidnapped children, the big-picture pattern in Nigeria remains the same. Groups like Boko Haram and Fulani militants attack and abduct people at will. They often target Christians, who are considered soft targets. The government’s response to enforcing justice is lackluster.

The situation takes on further seriousness this Christmas, as memories of mass killings return. Two years ago on Christmas Eve, nearly 300 Christians across Plateau State were murdered.

Believers expect adversity this year, too. “That’s their life. That’s all they know,” Kelley says. “And they will not stop worshiping Jesus because of it [the danger].” 

Pray for God’s strength for Nigerian Christians and His mercy over their lives this Christmas. Pray for their enemies by name.

“In northern Nigeria, there are dozens of different people groups or nations — including the Fulani, the Hausa, and the Kanuri, that are all 99% Muslim,” says Kelley. “When Jesus said ‘Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers,’ we can inject the names Kanuri, Fulani and Hausa into that prayer, because those are the places and the nations that need laborers.”

Header photo courtesy of Moses Adeyemi via Unsplash.