Press Release
“Nigeria:
The Lord’s Easter Desecrated by Violence”

9 April 2026

The Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem mournfully deplores the chain of attacks that have stained with blood the Easter Time of Resurrection for Christians in Nigeria, desecrating the brightest days of the liturgical year.

On Easter Sunday, in Ariko in the Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State, armed militiamen assaulted the Christian community following a service at the ECWA church. At least five worshippers were killed and thirty-six people, mostly women and children, were abducted.

That same evening, Boko Haram militants surrounded the village of Yinagu in Madagali County, Adamawa State, killing five Christians and forcing the residents to flee.

The overall death toll from the violence over Easter weekend exceeds fifty-five victims across Northern Nigeria, with nearly two hundred civilians still missing after being abducted. These numbers compound the massacres of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, painting a grim picture of systematic persecution.

The Church embraces with immense love the families of the victims, the abducted, and all those forced to flee their homelands. The Church invokes the Risen Lord, to pierce the darkness enveloping these regions with His light and forcefully urges the international community with all her might to break this deafening silence.

“This indeed is the will of my Father,
that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life,
and that I shall raise him up on the last day”
(Jn 6:40)