This report is an uncomfortable reminder that cruelty does not discriminate. We focus on six children whose father was murdered by Boko Haram. Forced into the same situation as thousands of other refugees, the bereaved family fled to Maiduguri with their mother. But the relief was not to last. Perhaps through the weight of grief or the emotional turmoil of caring for seven with nothing to her name, the mother soon fell ill. After escaping religious violence and bravely fighting a long war with sickness, the mother also died. Now, six children were displaced, bereaved of both their parents, and alone in a camp of refugees.

The food and clothing relief distribution was planned for eight displaced villages in Agatu — Ogwumogbo, Akele, Ikpele, Kpokpolo, Ejima, Ogbayi, Ole‑gadakolo and Olegadapa. All eight communities had suffered severe attacks by Fulani herdsmen for the second consecutive year. The survivors from these villages fled to Usha Community in Agatu LGA, Benue State, carrying with them their grief, and not much else.

For over thirteen years, the same people and faces have lived in the worn makeshift tents and walked the same beaten paths across eight IDP camps in Maiduguri. It is all too common for us, far removed from the hardship to glance over these reported numbers as sad statistics. The truth is, these are real lives and real people whose dreams and goals have been violently uprooted and thrust into a cycle of fear, lack, and uncertainty.

When we arrived at Otobi Akpa, the air was heavy with a sorrow we could almost touch. What we saw in the faces of the people, however, was not despair but the unspoken resilience of a village that has looked death in the face and continues to eke out a living amid suffering.

The Lay Faithful Trust Fund last visited the Christian Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the Sangere Dutse, Fombina E.Y.N., and Anguwan Fulani Family IDP camps in the Girei Local Government Area (LGA), Adamawa State, in December 2025. In January, we returned on another aid mission to provide our persecuted brothers and sisters with sorely needed clothes.

On Sunday, 18th January 2026, many Nigerians awoke to a deepening nightmare in the Middle Belt: 177 Christians were taken hostage on a Sunday morning. Abducted from three different congregations, the victims included members of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) and two Cherubim and Seraphim Church assemblies. The residents of Kurmin Wali, Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA) came to a grim realisation: the mass abduction of Christians had taken on a darker, more terrifying dimension.