A deadly attack in Nigeria, the latest in a series of violent acts there, has a representative from the Marshall Catholic Newman Center calling for prayers to ease the situation for those affected.

'Pray for those who are being persecuted for their beliefs,” Nick Chancey, campus minister and director of the Newman Center, said in a recent tweet. 

Christian villages in northern and central Nigeria have been the target of relentless violence in recent months. A deadly attack on May 15-16 killed more than 100 people, prompting Chancey’s plea. The majority of the victims in that overnight wave of violence were women and children, The Pillar said in a report. 

At least nine communities in northern Nigeria have been affected by the devastating attacks. Over the past four months, coordinated attacks have led to the deaths of more than 200 individuals. Fulani herders are suspected of being behind the violence. The exact death toll has not been confirmed, The Pillar said, so the toll is only estimated. These relentless assaults have been repeatedly targeting Christian villages, carried out by Muslim Fulani herding communities and Islamist terrorist groups.

“I have never seen a nation so comfortable watching the killings of its citizens on a daily basis in the hundreds and nothing has been done for the past 15 years,” said Bishop Jude Ayodeji Arogundade, bishop of Ondo, Nigeria, said in a report by The Tablet. 

Christian villages in Nigeria typically are on their own, with a lack of government protection and with law enforcement often responding slowly to calls for help. These attacks frequently exhibit religious motivations, as terror groups like Boko Haram strive to enforce Islamic-based laws upon Christian communities. More than 50,000 Christians have lost their lives over the last 14 years, while millions have been forced to leave, The Pillar report said.

“The government must wake up and show strength and courage and make sure those who carried out the evil that took place in this church and the evil going around our country are brought to book and punished accordingly,” Arogundade told The Tablet.