New study highlights high number of attacks on Christians in Nigeria

A new human rights report on Nigeria presents alarming statistics: over 55,000 people were killed in just four years, including over 16,000 civilians.

The report covers the period from October 2019 to September 2023, corresponding to President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term and the first four months of Bola Tinubu’s presidency.

Conducted by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA), the study titled “Countering the Myth of Religious Indifference in Nigeria’s Terror” – an extensive four-year study on kidnappings and killings in Nigeria – is considered the most comprehensive research in this area to date.

ORFA is a program of the Foundation Platform for Social Transformation, a registered charity in The Netherlands that monitors religious freedom, documents rights violations, and informs decision-makers through advocacy.

The report highlights that Nigeria is entangled in a complex security crisis, marked by widespread violence, particularly against religious communities.

“The most striking point is that the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) are killing Nigerian civilians unopposed. Mass killings, abductions and the torture of whole families go largely unchallenged as government forces pursue targets hundreds of miles away,” the researchers note.

The report says Nigeria faced significant violence and insecurity over the four-year period, with certain regions being particularly affected. During this time, 55,910 people were killed in 9,970 attacks, and 21,621 people were abducted in 2,705 attacks.

This averages to about eight attacks per day involving killings and/or abductions over the four years.

The report highlights that in the North-Central zone and Southern Kaduna, where Fulani herdsmen carry out numerous attacks, there is a noticeable lack of security presence during these incidents.

Frans Vierhout, Senior Analyst at The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa notes that millions of people are left undefended. He highlights that for years, calls for help have been ignored as terrorists target vulnerable communities, and now the data clearly reflects this reality.

The study notes that ISIS or al-Qaeda affiliates were responsible for just a fraction of the 55,910 people killed in the context of terror groups in Nigeria. It says the little-known Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) killed at least 42 percent of all civilian casualties, while Boko Haram and ISWAP (‘Islamic State West Africa Province) combined killed 10 percent.

The study identified land-based community attacks as the most common attack pattern, making up 81 percent of civilian killings.

It says Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) often targeted small Christian farming settlements, committing acts of murder, rape, abduction, and arson. And for every Muslim killed, 2.7 Christians were killed within the reporting period.

The ORFA data study also highlights the increasing prevalence of Islamist kidnappings in Nigeria, with incidents rising significantly over four years, with a total of 21.532 abductions recorded over the four-year period.

And again, Christians paid the highest price.

“Among the 21,532 civilians abducted, the number of Christians abducted was 11,185, while the number of Muslims abducted was 7,899,” the study reads.

Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, a partner to ORFA and analyst, notes the FEM specifically targets Christian populations, although Muslims also suffer greatly.

He emphasizes that kidnappers pursue Islamist goals, and the abduction, torture, and sexual violation of young women can devastate their prospects for normal married life and family.

The report notes that there is “a culture of violence” in Nigeria created by terror groups, although many factors play a part in what’s happening in Africa’s most populous nation, violent Islamism is an important part of it.

“Attacks involving killings and abductions often represent a whole spectrum of violence and suffering: Communities raided or permanently occupied; people wounded or maimed; women and girls raped; houses, shops and other businesses destroyed or occupied; fields destroyed or occupied; houses of worship abandoned, closed or destroyed; people driven from their homelands into dire situations of internal displacement. Ransom payments bring families and religious communities to the brink of bankruptcy, while at the same time financing the operations of the ‘Terror Groups’,” the authors write.

Emeka Umeagbalasi, the Executive Director of the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law – an NGO that tracks Christian persecution in Nigeria – has hailed the report as “one of the most comprehensive and detailed encyclopedia cataloguing the situation of vulnerable citizens in Nigeria: those who are targeted, abducted or killed or disappeared on grounds of their religion in Nigeria.”

Noting that Nigeria isn’t in safe hands, Emeka told Crux the country is being run by people “whose only stock in trade is to enforce radical Islamism in the country.”

“Thousands of Catholic faithful are being killed from right, left and center by the jihadists,” he said.

He called on Catholic bishops to make more forceful statements about the continued murder of Christians.

“I don’t know why the Bishops’ Conference is silent watching all these killings,” Emeka said.

“The Catholic Bishops’ Conference is a very powerful institution. They can organize a world press Conference covered live at the Vatican. They can organize international procession processions. They can storm the United Nations. They can storm the African Union. They can storm the American Congress. They can storm the EU Parliament, the British House of Lords, et cetera,” he continued.

The ORFA report urges the Nigerian government to do more to bring down and hopefully end the killings and abductions, calling international solidarity with Nigeria.