Unguwan Rukuba: Who Else Was Killed?

When American evangelist Alex Barbir arrived at the scene of the Unguwan Rukuba killings on Sunday, March 29, he posted a 40-second video stating that "10 innocent Christians, on Palm Sunday," were killed.
That framing did three things immediately. It introduced unverified numbers. It defined the victims along religious lines. And it placed the attack within a sensitive religious moment. In a city like Jos, that combination shapes public reaction very quickly.
Unguwan Rukuba is largely Christian. That much is known. But what followed shows why that early framing matters.
What the Evidence Now Shows
Subsequent accounts contradict the claim that only Christians were killed.
Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo, a pastor who shared his account in a video by the Christian Church Network that circulated widely, acknowledged that Muslims were also among the victims.
Atama Ibrahim, a resident of Unguwan Rukuba who witnessed the attack firsthand, reported in a video that also went viral that "28 Christians and two Muslims were killed."
More formally, the Plateau State Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI) confirmed that four Muslims were among the 27 deaths initially verified by the police on Monday. Muslim families identified these victims at Jos University Teaching Hospital, according to JNI.
The conclusion is therefore clear. The victims were both Muslims and Christians. Any narrative that presents this as a one-sided religious attack is incomplete — a point Atama himself made in his video.
It is also worth noting that casualty figures varied across sources, ranging from 10 to 30, reflecting the fact that counts were still being confirmed in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The Daily Trust figure of 27, verified by police in the report, represents the most formally substantiated number available at the time of my writing this morning.
The Question of the Burning Bike
Eyewitness accounts of the attack also differ. Some described attackers arriving on motorcycles. Others mentioned a white car. When this inconsistency was raised, some commentators suggested that both accounts could be true.
Recall that in the background of Alex Barbir's video, a fire is visible with what appears to be a motorcycle burning inside it. Whose bike was that?
One possibility, raised by a content creator, Manari TV, is that the bike was connected to the attack, though he was not certain, and could not confirm whether the attackers' vehicle was a Siena or a Vectra.
A second possibility comes from the account of Abubakar Yusuf, a survivor whose brother — a motorcycle rider shot in the head while travelling to Fobur to buy tomatoes — was later identified at Jos University Teaching Hospital, according to the JNI report. It is possible the burning bike belonged to him.
What this uncertainty makes clear is that filling gaps with assumptions only deepens confusion. These are questions for investigators, not content creators and speculators.
The Turn to Violence
More concerning is what followed the attack. Reports and videos show that reprisal violence occurred shortly after the incident, including one account of a victim being burnt during the chaos.
In another video, a youth leader publicly called for an end to peace in Jos, urging retaliation.
He stated: "As a youth leader, I was born and brought up in Unguwan Rukuba. For the sake of the dead, not by sickness, on the grounds of genocide, I stand today to mandate to all the youths that the issue of peace has passed. I am telling us that the issue of peace and unity should be kept aside."
Calls like this are the most dangerous feature of any crisis. When facts are unclear and emotions are high, voices that demand retaliation can quickly gain traction. And in this case, they did, with people publicly affirming the youth leader's words.
But revenge does not protect communities. It exposes them, and it creates new victims while the original crime remains unresolved.