Five-year-old Christian girl Mary David lost the sight in one eye after she was struck in the face with a machete by armed men who attacked her village in May. The injured eye has since become infected, and her family cannot afford the further treatment she needs.
Mary, five, lost the sight in her left eye in a militia attack. csi
Mary is one of many children in rural Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt who have survived militia attacks. Local Christian victims say the state provides no support for survivors’ recovery.
The little girl was asleep in her family’s home in Amizhiri village when the attackers, suspected members of a Fulani ethnic militia, arrived at about 1 a.m. on May 10, 2026, her parents told Christian Solidarity International (CSI) during a team visit to Miango district of Bassa Local Government Area in Plateau State.
CSI makes regular visits to Nigeria. The June visit followed numerous reports of repeated deadly raids on farming villages in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, a region between the mostly Muslim north and the mostly Christian south.
Villagers had gone outside to collect rainwater after a downpour, according to Mary’s father, David. When the rain stopped, someone switched on a flashlight and saw one of the attackers advancing toward them.
Gunshots followed at once, and the villagers found themselves surrounded by more armed men than David could count. He recalled the attackers telling them to “stand strong” as they fired.
David was at home with his five children. He carried the two sleeping in his room to safety. But the attackers reached Mary and her seven-year-old brother, Matthew, in the other room before he could return for them.
One of the men struck Mary in the face with a machete. Matthew suffered a machete wound to his left cheek, and their three-year-old brother, Friday, was struck on the head.
Other residents escaped or hid, some of them above the ceilings of their houses. The attackers left the houses standing and carried away phones, clothing, goods from shops and whatever else they could take.
Mary’s mother, Ladi Sunday, 38, was away from home that night and learned of the attack from one of the villagers who had been shot.
The machete blow caused Mary’s left eye to swell shut, and she lost all vision in it. A prosthetic eye was recommended and fitted, but it repeatedly falls out of the socket.
David was shown how to put it back, but he later stopped doing so. The injured eye has since become infected, and the infection has spread to her right eye, putting her at risk of total blindness.
Mary still plays and is generally in good spirits, but she and her brothers appear malnourished. Their mother said they wake in fright during the night.
Matthew lost four teeth to the machete and suffers recurring pain. He has not seen a dentist for a full check because the family cannot pay.
Friday’s wound runs from his damaged eye toward the back of his head, and the injury to his brain has left him without the use of his right hand and right leg. He walked and talked before the attack and now does neither, dragging himself along the ground to play with Mary and the other children.
“The pressure on the family is great and very stressful,” Ladi said, in tears. “We do not have money to give the desired medical care to the children and we can barely eat.”
The family managed to farm this year, she said, and may have to sell everything to pay the medical bills.
David has struggled since the attack. Ladi said that when a hunter fired a gun in the village recently, “my husband was so startled and got so upset that he went after the man and spoke harshly to him.”
He also attempted to take his own life and was rushed to hospital, she said.
Mary and Matthew attend a primary school more than an hour’s walk from home. They wake at 6 a.m., usually leave without eating, and return between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. after classes end at noon. Their route takes them through the bush between villages that have suffered repeated attacks, leaving them at risk of attack or kidnapping.
Mary’s family is among the survivors of violence that has killed thousands of Nigerian Christians each year.
At least 4,216 Christians were killed in Nigeria between January 1 and September 8, 2026, an average of one every 86 minutes, according to Equipping the Persecuted, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports Christian communities under attack in the country.
The group says the toll is a minimum and estimates that more than five million Christians have been displaced and more than 600 Christian communities destroyed or emptied.
Nazila Ghanea, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, visited Nigeria from June 8 to 19, 2026, and went to a settlement for internally displaced people in Plateau State.
In her end-of-mission statement she said, “Impunity and lack of accountability have reportedly entrenched these cycles of fear and violence.” She reported that people in rural areas suffer killings and the destruction of their livelihoods with little or no justice, and that victims told her of many attacks in which the authorities failed to appear.
Nigeria acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1993. Article 6 protects the right to life, and the UN Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors the covenant, has stated in its General Comment No. 36 that states must exercise due diligence to protect life from threats posed by private persons or entities.
Nigeria also ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. Article 19 requires states to protect children from all forms of physical violence. Article 24 guarantees every child the highest attainable standard of health, and Article 39 obliges states to promote the physical and psychological recovery of child victims of neglect, cruel treatment or armed conflict.
For Mary and her brothers, these provisions mean meeting specific needs. Mary needs treatment for the infection now affecting both eyes, a prosthesis that stays in place and a safe way to get to school. The state has left the family to cope alone. Families like hers depend on help from donors outside Nigeria.
CSI is now supporting the family through livelihood initiatives to help them rebuild their income and achieve greater financial stability. It is also paying the school fees for Mary and her siblings.
