In Nigeria, Christians make up just under half of the population, yet they endure a majority of the persecution. On Friday, Fulani herdsmen reportedly killed five Christians and wounded three others during a Bible study in the north-central region of the African country.
A group of “Fulani bandits” attacked devout believers at around 3:30 in the afternoon on Friday as they were studying Scripture at an Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in Nigeria’s Kaduna state. They killed Victor Haruna, Dogara Jatau, Luka Yari, Jesse Dalami and Bawu John, according to Morning Star News.
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Resident Philip Adams identified those killed in the attack in a text message to the news outlet. He also identified the three wounded as Samuel Aliyu, Philip Dominic, and Jacob Hussaini.
Another resident, Happiness Daniel, told Morning Star News fear has become a way of life for those living in Kaduna state. Those living in Kajuru County, which is largely Christian and predominantly farming territory, have faced intense persecution at the hands of Fulani herdsmen. The city, according to local reports, has seen 110 kidnappings in the last six months.
“This is the present predicament of most communities within Kajuru and Kachia Local Council Areas in southern part of Kaduna state,” the resident said. “We constantly live in fear every day. We can’t sleep in our homes and we can’t go to farms.”
In its most recent report, published in March, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) once again recommended Nigeria for designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by President Donald Trump or Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
It found religious freedom remains “poor” in Nigeria, noting, in 2024, “federal and state governments continued to tolerate attacks or fail[ed] to respond to violent actions by non-state actors who justify their violence on religious grounds.”
At the end of first term in office, in December 2020, Trump’s administration designated Nigeria as a CPC through then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. However, in November 2021, then-President Joe Biden removed the designation through his secretary of State, Antony Blinken. The move was widely condemned by advocates of religious freedom and by the USCIRF, which called the decision “appalling.”
It was never made clear why the Biden White House reversed Nigeria’s classification as a CPC. The move, though, followed a trip Blinken made to Nigeria, which, prior to Trump’s first term, had never been designated a CPC despite its long history of Christian persecution.
Nina Shea, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa in March of this year, urging the U.S. government to re-designate Nigeria as a CPC.
“[M]ilitant groups of nomadic Fulani Muslim herders are reported to be the greatest threat to Nigeria’s Christians, particularly those in Middle Belt farming communities,” she told lawmakers. “That central area is the intersection of Nigeria’s mostly Muslim North with its mostly Christian South. In Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, and other Middle Belt states, thousands of Christians have been killed, maimed, and raped and millions of them have been driven from their lands and are now homeless, due to Fulani attacks. This is the heart of Nigeria’s breadbasket, and, as their farming families are slaughtered or forced to flee , the region’s suffering is compounded by growing mass hunger.”
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Nigeria, according to some expert analyses, is the center of Christian persecution.
“There are more Christian martyrs in Nigeria than anywhere else on earth. Ninety percent of Christians who have been killed for their faith over the last year have been murdered in Nigeria,” Megan Meador, communications director for Alliance Defending Freedom International, told Crux in 2023.
Of the 5,500 Christians killed for their faith in 2022, 90% were Nigerian.
Open Doors, an international nonprofit tracking Christian persecution worldwide, lists Nigeria as No. 7 on its World Watch List.
“While Christians used to be vulnerable only in the Muslim-majority northern states, this violence continues to spread into the Middle Belt and even further south,” Open Doors reported. “The attacks are shockingly brutal. Many believers are killed, particularly men, while women are often kidnapped and targeted for sexual violence. More believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.”
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