A Benue survivor recounts the night armed attackers stormed Yelwata camp, killing her five children and displacing thousands.
“I Watched My Five Children Slaughtered”: Benue Survivor Speaks Before US Congress”
When the armed men broke into the Yelwata displacement camp in Benue State, it was already late. Families had settled in for the night, hoping for a few hours of peace after another day of fear, hunger, and uncertainty.
But for Msurshima Apeh, a mother who had fled previous attacks with her five children, the night would become one she would never wake from unchanged.
On Thursday, speaking in a subdued but steady voice before the United States House Subcommittee on Africa, Apeh relived the moments that shattered her family forever. Appearing virtually from Benue State, she told American lawmakers how she watched helplessly as her five children were murdered in front of her.
“When we went to sleep that night around 9 pm, the Fulani terrorists attacked us where we were sleeping,” she continued.
“They locked us inside the camp and were butchering them with cutlasses and shooting guns as well.”
A Night of Horror for Apeh
Hundreds of displaced families were sheltering after fleeing earlier violence in Guma Local Government Area.
As the killings continued, the attackers set the buildings ablaze.
“When the torture had finished at some point in time, they poured petrol on the building and the majority of them were set ablaze,” she said.
“In the midst of the panic and screams, I looked up and saw a tree. It became my only chance of survival”.
“I raised my hands on the tree and climbed up where I was able to hide myself,” she recounted.
“My five children that I left below were crying, and in my presence, they were being slaughtered.”
She stayed in the branches, watching her world collapse below her, unable to descend, unable to save her children, unable to forget.
Eventually, she fled into the bush where she was later found by rescue teams and evacuated to safety.
A Massacre That Shook the Nation
The attack on Yelwata in June 2025 was one of the deadliest in recent years. More than 100 people were believed killed, though civil rights organisations insist the toll was closer to 200. Some 3,000 survivors were displaced, many relocated to camps across Benue and neighbouring Nasarawa.
Images of burnt houses, scattered belongings and charred compounds shocked the country and reignited national alarm over deteriorating security in the Middle Belt.
President Bola Tinubu visited survivors in Makurdi hospitals and ordered an immediate security response. Police later announced the arrest of 26 suspects.
But even with government action, the incident deepened growing anxiety over ongoing farmer–herder violence an increasingly volatile conflict that sits at the crossroads of land pressure, ethnic tensions and religious identity.
International significance
Apeh’s testimony took on international significance because it came during a hearing examining US President Donald Trump’s decision to return Nigeria to the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list for religious persecution.
Trump argued that Christian communities were being targeted without sufficient government protection and suggested that military options were being considered.
His decision has sharpened global attention on Nigeria’s handling of extremist attacks.
The Nigerian government, however, rejects the allegation. President Tinubu insists that Nigeria protects freedom of worship and is not religiously intolerant.
A Voice for the Dead
For Apeh, the hearing was not about geopolitics, Washington, Abuja or policy assessments. It was about speaking for five children who did not live to grow up.
Sitting in her home thousands of miles away from the Congress floor, she told her story so the world would not erase theirs.
She ended with no dramatic flourish only the quiet, enduring grief of a mother who survived the night her family did not.
And in that silence, her testimony travelled far beyond the walls of Congress.
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