Niger: Christmas Midnight Mass Turns Violent as Church Is Stormed, Couple Killed

Image: Jihad Watch

A Christian couple was brutally killed in south-western Niger this week after armed attackers stormed a church and fired shots into the air, triggering chaos and fear among worshippers, local residents told AFP on Friday.

The attack took place in the Dosso region, an area of Niger that has increasingly felt the spillover of extremist violence affecting the wider Sahel. For over a decade, the country has been grappling with an insurgency involving armed groups allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, locked in a prolonged conflict with state security forces.

According to a local resident who spoke on condition of anonymity, the incident occurred around 11:00 pm on Wednesday night in Mailo village. Christians had gathered inside the church for a late-night mass when armed individuals suddenly entered the building and began firing into the air. The gunfire caused widespread panic as worshippers scrambled to escape and seek safety.

Amid the chaos, a man and his wife fled the church and attempted to hide inside their home. However, the attackers reportedly pursued them. The couple was later found dead, marking yet another grim episode in the region’s ongoing violence against civilians.

The scale of insecurity in Niger has continued to worsen. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a global organisation that tracks political violence, reported that nearly 2,000 people have lost their lives due to conflict-related incidents in the country this year alone.

While no group has officially claimed responsibility for the church attack, suspected jihadist groups have previously been blamed for similar assaults. Between 2018 and 2021, churches in the western Tillaberi region were repeatedly targeted, highlighting a pattern of violence against religious minorities. At the same time, extremist attacks have not spared Muslims either, as evidenced by the killing of 111 Muslim worshippers in Tillaberi earlier this year.

The latest killings underscore the persistent vulnerability of civilians in Niger, where religious gatherings—both Christian and Muslim—have increasingly become targets amid a broader climate of instability and fear.

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)