At least a dozen people were killed in Nigeria on Palm Sunday after gunmen opened fire on Christians gathered in public areas, but no suspects have been arrested.
The attackers descended upon the Christian-majority city of Jos with weapons and vehicles, opening fire in businesses and in the areas surrounding the local church. Twelve have been confirmed dead, but citizens say the true death toll is much higher.
Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of the Archdiocese of Jos told Catholic outlet ACI Africa that reports of the attack are true but that due to lockdowns imposed by the government in the aftermath of the shooting, there has not yet been clarity about the nature of the attacks.
“I think the details are not there,” the archbishop said. “If I make a statement, I should do so with conviction and provide a clearer position.”
“Since the morning, I have not been able to even come out,” the archbishop said. “I cannot even say to my own [Justice, Development and Peace Commission] that they can brief me better.”
Nigerians are a frequent target for roaming bands of Islamist gunmen who seek out Christians due to ethnic and religious feuds in the countryside of Nigeria. But the attack in Jos, a major city, shattered hope that Christians are relatively safe in more urban areas.
“Our people are not strangers to violence,” Bishop Mark Maigida Nzukwein of the Diocese of Wukari told ACI Africa on Monday. His diocese is also in Jos province. “They are familiar with sorrow and suffering. If these people are killing them because they are Christians, it means they are having their share of the cross of Christ.”
Nzukwein did not claim to have insight into the nature of the attacks, but said that despite being a sovereign nation, Nigeria is “still battling with this phenomenon of banditry and ethnic militia.”
Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV), an outspoken advocate of pressuring the Nigerian government to take action against the killings of Christians, called the Palm Sunday massacre “sickening and unacceptable” but “not surprising.”
“This tragedy follows a pattern of radical Islamic terrorists massacring Christians on Holy Days,” the representative said on social media following the attack. “In fact, terrorists have attacked Christians in Nigeria on every single holy day in recent memory, except for last Christmas — when President Trump sent 12 tomahawk cruise missiles to stop them.”
Moore warned that if the Nigerian government doesn’t take the ongoing threat to Christian citizens seriously, “there will be significant consequences for Nigeria’s relationship with the United States.”
ROUGHLY 100 US TROOPS ARRIVE IN NIGERIA TO TRAIN SOLDIERS FIGHTING ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
Combatting Islamic attacks against Nigerian Christians has been a long-term project of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
He threatened to invade the country “guns-a-blazing” if the “Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians” by “radical Islamists.”
On Christmas Day, Trump launched missile strikes on Islamic State terrorist groups in the northwest region of the country who had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
Last month, the U.S. military deployed troops to Nigeria to instruct and assist Nigerian security forces in combating Islamic extremist groups.