Violence has erupted recently in the city of Jos, Nigeria. Since the 7th of March, more than 500 villagers, from the predominantly Christian Berom tribe, have been killed. According to the BBC, more than 200 young Hausa-Fulani speaking males are now under arrest for these attacks.

YWAM have many staff working in the city. All of them are safe, according to local leaders Ansel Pronk and Anne Abok. YWAM staff in Nigeria, many from the Jos area itself, are traumatised by events. Whilst no YWAMers have been killed in the violence, friends and loved ones have been lost. Many people have been displaced by the crisis and are living in hastily built camps run by the Red Cross. The needs there are overwhelming and YWAM has been helping to provide relief aid and clothing.

Jos lies in Plateau State, in central Nigeria, midway between the predominantly Muslim north, and the mainly Christian south. This fertile plateau area draws many migrants, seeking work. The indigenous people are mainly Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta Christians. By contrast, the migrant settlers have mostly come from northern Muslim Hausa groups. Struggles over land between these ethnic groups has also taken a religious nature, with the Berom people suspicious of Hausa and Fulani intentions to seize power and impose Sharia law on Plateau State. Local Islamic leader, Sheikh Musa Zilani, disagrees that the violence is of a religious nature. He blames ethnic tension.

Jos has a long history of horrific violence. Reports say that Muslims have ransacked Christian communities and Christians have also attacked Muslims. Hundreds have died. These are crimes of revenge and make no sense to the by-stander.

Anne Abok and her husband Alex work with YWAM’s Media Village in Jos, a video production and training ministry. They, with their team, are some of these by-standers. They locked themselves behind closed doors, and went without food and rationed water. The sound of gunshots and memories of the recent attacks have echoed in their hearts. Anne has reported that the faith and prayers of the young people on their team has encouraged her and given her strength to lead in circumstances that require supernatural courage – God courage. They have also used their communication skills to document the crisis.

They interviewed a pastor who survived some of the horrific scenes. “I was able to escape with my two sons but my wife and daughter were killed with most members of my congregation. Ninety corpses are in my village right now and we don’t have the report of the ones that died in the hospital in Jos.” he said.

Last year Alex graduated from YWAM’s School of Digital Photography in Media Village, South Africa. He left with a passion to use his camera to capture images that would communicate God’s heart for a lost world. He could not have imagined that within weeks he would look through the lens and see images of horror, pain and persecution.

Alex used the lens of his camera to tell this story in the moment of time that it took for the shutter to capture the pain of a nation. These are images of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters – our brothers and sisters in Christ.

A single image can leave us unsettled, uncomfortable and greatly troubled. Imagine for a moment the pain in heart of the Father who knows each person by name. He knows when a sparrow falls, how much more so these children.

Please continue to pray for:
- YWAMers at Media Village and the City of Refuge, in Jos: for their protection and for the help of trauma response counselors;

- Relief workers and aid;

- Local Christians who are grappling with the difficult issue of when it is right to defend their land and belongings. Pray for them to have the wisdom to know how to respond and the grace not to retaliate;

- Peacemakers amongst every ethnic group and faith, and for an end to the cycle of hatred and violence.