‘Wiped Out in One Night’: Nine from One Family Killed in Plateau Attack

As Attacks persist in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, a youth group pleads for global attention

By Adamu Madugu

They were killed in their sleep. In just over an hour late Saturday, gunmen stormed two farming villages in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State and murdered nine members of one family. The youngest was 3 months old. The oldest was 38.

The Berom Youth Moulders-Association, BYM, said the attack on Wereng-Camp and Kum villages began around 11:00 p.m. on July 11, 2026.

The assailants, described as armed bandits and terrorist gangs from the Fass area, “one of the notorious terrorist enclaves” near Jol Community, left one survivour, 40-year-old Pam Yohanna, fighting for his life in hospital.

The dead, BYM said, were: Celina James, 38; Yohanna James, 21; Janet Yohanna, 18; baby Jennifer Yohanna, 3 months; Sele James, 18; Melody James, 16; Reto James, 10; Endurance James, 8; and Peace James, 3.

For residents of Plateau, the night followed a grim, familiar script: invasion, gunfire, burnt homes, then silence.

BYM says this was not an isolated incident. It is part of a decade-long cycle of attacks that have targeted farming communities across Plateau and Nigeria’s wider North-Central region.

“Entire families have been wiped out, villages repeatedly invaded, homes destroyed, and thousands of residents displaced from their ancestral communities,” the group said in a statement signed by National Publicity Secretary Rwang Tengwong.

The group alleges the violence has disproportionately hit Christian farming communities, a claim that has long fuelled tension in a state that sits on the fault line between Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north and Christian south.

BYM is now calling beyond Abuja. It urged Nigeria’s Federal Government to “dismantle terrorist hideouts, apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators,” and deliver aid to the displaced. But it also directed an appeal outward to the United Nations, the United States, the African Union, the European Union, ECOWAS, and international human rights groups.

“The frequency of these attacks, the scale of civilian casualties, and the destruction of homes and livelihoods underscore the urgent need for stronger protection of vulnerable communities and meaningful accountability,” BYM said.

“The continued bloodshed in Plateau State must not be ignored. The lives of innocent men, women, and children deserve protection, justice, and lasting peace. The time for decisive action is now.”

There has been no official response yet from Plateau State authorities or Nigeria’s security agencies.

Plateau has been a flashpoint for more than 10 years. Disputes over land, water, and ethnicity often framed around clashes between farmers and herders have merged with banditry and extremist violence.

The decade long killings have resulted to villages emptied, farms abandoned, and communities living under the threat of night raids.

For the James family of Wereng-Camp and Kum, that threat arrived at 11 p.m. and was over before dawn.

Nine names added to a list that, local leaders say, grows longer every year. As BYM put it, “These are not just numbers. They are mothers who now earn no more, children who will never grow up, and communities that are asking if government can work for them.”

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