The “pure genocide” of Christians in Nigeria, as it has been characterized by several international observers, is reaching unprecedented levels, according to two separate reports.
“Countering the myth of religious indifference in Nigerian terror (10/2019 – 9/2023),” a comprehensive, 136-page report published by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa on August 29, 2024, found that Muslim militants slaughtered 16,769 Christians in just the four years between 2019 and 2023. That comes out to 4,192 Christians killed on average per year—or one Christian murdered for his/her faith every two hours.
More than half of these killings (55%) were committed by radicalized Muslim Fulani herdsmen, who over the last decade have become greater persecutors of Christians than more internationally recognizable terror groups, such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province—though these latter, too, are playing their part in the genocide: Fulani killed 9,153 Christians between 2019 and 2023; all other terrorist groups killed 4,895.
The second report, “NO ROAD HOME: Christian IDPs displaced by extremist violence in Nigeria,” published by Open Doors on September 1, 2024, states that the persecution, slaughter, and displacement of Christians in Nigeria is “unrelenting” and “a time bomb.” Because “militant Fulani groups have deliberately targeted Christians or Christian communities, their livelihood, faith leaders and places of worship,” Christians are becoming “an endangered species” in Nigeria, where they once amounted for more than half of the West African nation’s population (the other half being Muslim).
The violence has reached the point that many traumatized Christian children sleep, the report says, in trees as they try to avoid being butchered during the night, when Fulani are most prone to attack. “My children,” a parent is quoted, “each time they hear anything, they panic or go into hiding because it triggers the trauma. The terror of the attacks has not stopped, rather it has increased.”
In just the last decade, the amount of people to be displaced by the havoc and chaos caused by the Islamic groups has tripled: in 2014, there were 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria; as of 2023, there are 3.4 million.
One of these displaced persons, a Christian Pastor, Benjamin Barnabas, who has been living in a tiny tent for five years, shared his story in the report. He and his family were working on their farm when Fulani militants “came with guns, machetes and sticks,” thrashing the pastor and his family: “We lost everything that I had. Everything in my home and village was burnt, I was left with nothing… We are displaced because of violence. The news doesn’t care about it, we are remaining in darkness—being forgotten, being disregarded.”
This point, that the media is indifferent or worse concerning the plight of Christians—and obfuscating the identity of their tormentors—was emphasized by the Observatory report:
For over a decade atrocities against civilians in Nigeria have been downplayed or minimized. This has proved a major obstacle for those seeking to understand the violence. Misleading euphemisms, such as ‘armed herdsmen’ and ‘cattle grazers’ are used to describe continual waves of invasion, torture and killing in rural communities. Descriptions of attacks as ‘ethnic clashes’, ‘farmers-herders clashes’ or retaliatory attacks are seriously misleading. The use of the phrase ‘bandits’ to refer to militias carrying out mass kidnaps, and enforcement of serfdom on communities, is another case in point. And a policy of concealing the religious [Christian] identity of victims also serves to distort the true picture.
Behind all these misleading euphemisms, the facts remain: the murderers are Muslims and their victims are overwhelmingly Christian. Although the Observatory report focuses mostly on Nigerian media’s distortion of events, Western mainstream media has been following suit—devoutly refusing to use the most obvious, bottom-level identifiers of both the attackers (Muslims) and the attacked (Christians).
Thus, when Muslim terrorists slaughtered nearly 200 Christians last Christmas, the Associated Press failed to mention the identities of the assailants and their victims. Rather, it presented the atrocity, as so many now do, as a regrettable byproduct of climate change—which is, apparently, forcing “herders” (Muslims) to encroach on the lands of “farmers” (Christians).
In another AP report on the 2022 Pentecost Sunday church bombing that left 50 Christian worshippers dead, the words “Muslim” and “Islam”—even “Islamist”—never appear. Rather, readers were told, “It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church.” To maintain this ambiguity, the AP failed to mention that Islamic terrorists have stormed hundreds of churches and slaughtered thousands of Christians “for sport” over the years in Nigeria—a fact that just might have offered a hint as to “who was behind the attack.”
Or consider the words of Obama’s then-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, after Muslim terrorists slaughtered 50 Christian church worshippers on Easter Sunday, 2012: “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria].” Instead, “inequality” and “poverty”— to quote former US President William J. Clinton — are “what’s fueling all this stuff” (“this stuff” being the Muslim genocide of Christians).
Back on the ground in Nigeria, most Christians see these ongoing attacks for what they are. As the nun, Sister Monica Chikwe, once observed: “It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black [like ISIS], chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians.’”
The recent reports also include quotes and anecdotes that underscore the true source of the hostility. According to one survivor, “When the Fulani gunmen came to attack, they could be heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest), we will destroy all Christians.’…. The Fulani started to shoot, burning houses. They burnt our animals and maize plants.”
As the Christian Association of Nigeria once rhetorically asked: “How can it be a [secular or economic] clash when one group [Muslims] is persistently attacking, killing, maiming, destroying, and the other group [Christians] is persistently being killed, maimed and their places of worship destroyed?”
In 2018, when the attacks were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the National Christian Elders Forum of Nigeria succinctly summarized the ultimate source behind the genocide of Christians in Nigeria:
JIHAD has been launched in Nigeria by the Islamists of northern Nigeria led by the Fulani ethnic group. This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. … We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels….
Although both reports agree that, while every day and often nominal Muslims—whom the terrorists see as little better than apostates—are also suffering and being displaced by the chaos, Christians “have been singled out for violence, face harsh living conditions and experience faith-based challenges throughout their displacement journey.” After pointing out that “Since 2015, there have been consistent reports of disparate treatment meted out to Christian and Muslim captives by members of Terror Groups,” the Observatory gives the following examples:
- Forced Labor: Christian captives, including men, women, and children, are routinely subjected to forced labor and grueling physical tasks, often under inhumane conditions. In contrast, their Muslim counterparts are typically spared from such treatment.
- Sexual Violence: Christian women and girls are frequently subjected to rape, sexual abuse, and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated by their captors. Muslim women, on the other hand, are generally not subjected to such atrocities.
- Ransom Demands and Release: Muslim captives who cannot afford to pay ransoms are sometimes released without payment, indicating a degree of preferential treatment. However, Christian captives are rarely granted such leniency.
- Execution Risks: According to media reports and research conducted over the past 10 years, Christian captives are more likely to be executed in captivity than Muslim captives held by the same terror groups. There are numerous instances where Christian captives were brutally murdered by their abductors, even after ransoms were paid.
The “radicalization” in Nigeria is such that even local and IDF camp officials are discriminating against and persecuting Christians: “some efforts to pressure, coerce or force conversion to Islam by the local government and members of public were described.” For example, “to gain access to critical support” in Borno State camps, “some have felt compelled to convert to Islam or deliberately hide their faith… [and] in some places of education they could not gain access with Christian names.”
Needless to say, the persecution continues. Below are a few headlines to appear in August and September of 2024, right around the publication times of and therefore not counted in these two reports:
· Oct. 3: Herdsmen Kill Christians in Northern and Central Nigeria
· Oct. 1: Herdsmen Kill Christians in Plateau State, Central Nigeria
· Sept. 23: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Christians at Church Services in Nigeria: Pastor and 30 others kidnapped.
· Sept. 2: Fulani Herdsmen Kill Six Christians in Central Nigeria
· Aug. 20: Fate of Pastor, Daughter Kidnapped in Nigeria Unknown: Captors receive ransom payment but demand another.
· Aug. 14: Muslims Burn Down Church Building in Central Nigeria: RCCG worship auditorium destroyed for second time.
· Aug. 13: Nigeria Continues to Tolerate Terrorism, USCIRF States
· Aug. 12: Bandits Kill Church Cleric, One Other, Abduct Eight Persons In Kaduna State Community
· Aug. 9: Herdsmen, Criminal Gang Kill at least 50 Christians in Nigeria
· Aug. 7: Herdsmen Injure Four Christians in Plateau State, Nigeria: One farmer who was shot suffers a shattered hand.
· Aug. 1: Prominent Christian Woman Kidnapped from Church in Nigeria: Policeman, driver are killed in attack.
In 2020, President Donald J. Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department’s List of Countries of Particular Concern—that is, nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Trump, moreover and with characteristic bluntness, went on to ask the then Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, “Why are you killing Christians?”
During President Joseph R. Biden, however, the State Department, rather bizarrely, removed Nigeria—where one Christian is butchered every two hours—from the list. Antony Blinken apparently made this concession three days before meeting with Muhammadu Buhari.
At the time, many observers responded by slamming the Biden administration. As Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for ADF International, noted:
Outcry over the State Department’s removal of Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria’s religious freedom violations is entirely warranted. No explanations have been given that could justify this decision. If anything, the situation in Nigeria has grown worse over the last year. Thousands of Christians, as well as Muslims who oppose the goals of terrorist and militia groups, are targeted, killed, and kidnapped, and the government is simply unwilling to stop these atrocities. … Removing Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria will only embolden the increasingly authoritarian government there.
At any rate, such is the current state of affairs: for many years now, a jihad of genocidal proportions has been declared on the Christian population of Nigeria—even as American media and government present Nigeria’s problems in purely economic terms that defy reality.
Put differently, for mainstream media and politicians, black lives—one every two hours for several years now—do not matter. At least not when those lives are Christian being slaughtered by Muslims.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.