The crack of gunfire shattered the morning air. Masara Kim, a journalist on the ground, was already sprinting uphill, lungs burning, phone still streaming live. Behind him, the distant pops of automatic weapons echoed through the valley. "I'm so freaking tired," he gasped into the camera. "Climbing uphill with serious gunfire — you can hear it in my background, still incoming."
Just hours earlier, this same patch of earth in central Nigeria had been a grave site. Eight Christians were being laid to rest — victims of a Fulani extremist attack the night before. Now the living were under fire, running for their lives from the very people who had slaughtered their neighbors.
The night of April 5 had been a nightmare in the village of Nding, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. Wi-Fi went dark — a predictable prelude to violence. The villagers had no warning, no way to call for help. But this time, a man from a neighboring town saw it happen and managed to post a desperate message online: "We are posting this as it is happening. It may take security forces hours to reach the community. I pray everyone is safe!!!"
For Nigeria's Christians, that prayer has become a bitter refrain. Again and again, they tell the same story: when the attackers come, help never arrives in time. Police and military often show up only after the terrorists have melted away — sometimes the next morning. And in a cruel twist, when villages do fight back and hold the line, the authorities sometimes disarm or arrest the defenders.
The morning after the Nding attack, a pastor named James sent a chilling update: eight people dead — including an entire family. But the horror didn't end with bullets. The Fulani, he explained, systematically destroyed Christian farms — slicing down garden eggs, maize, tomatoes, and cabbage with machetes or trampling them under herds of cattle. "These people are using the farms as their only source of livelihood," Pastor James wrote. "Now they are denied all this. What are they going to rely on? How do you expect them to survive?" His message ended with a plea: "God, please come to our help."
He didn't need to send video evidence. The families themselves were ready to testify — if any court would listen.
Then came an even more staggering message. "This one just happened today again in the morning," Pastor James wrote. "My own people (Berom) were in the burial ground trying to bury the eight people killed last night." The Fulani had attacked the funeral.
Masara Kim was there, covering the burial. As the gunfire erupted, he ran — and kept running. "It was like six, seven, to 800 meters from where I was taking cover with my friend," he later recounted. "I saw when one of the civilian responders fell. He was ferried on a motorcycle, obviously after he was shot." Kim watched the man slump over as the bike sped away. "Oh God, it's coming. It's coming. It's coming, Jesus. It's getting worse."
Villages like these are easy targets because they are unarmed. One community I visited had a police outpost just meters from the homes of victims. The attackers came anyway. The three policemen stayed inside their building, emerging only after the assault was over.
Everyone I have spoken to here shares the same desperate cry. They are frightened. Their livelihoods are destroyed. Their lives cannot move forward — and can be snuffed out at any moment. Worst of all, they feel utterly voiceless, abandoned while the world looks away. Meanwhile, some still insist there is no genocide against Christians in Nigeria. But out here, under the gunfire, the truth screams from every burning farm and every bullet-riddled grave.
