Report: Thousands of Christians Targeted and Killed in Nigeria

A new report says that Nigeria has been systematically persecuting Christians, including executing thousands, in an “unrelenting…time bomb.”

As Fox News reports, the claims come from Open Doors International, a faith-based non-profit which focuses on raising awareness of persecutions across the world. Open Doors says that Christians, as well as “Christian communities, their livelihoods, faith leaders, and places of worship” are being “deliberately targeted” in the African nation. It has gotten to the point where Christians are “an endangered species” in Nigeria, Open Doors stated.

“Last year alone, in Nigeria there were more people that were killed because of their Christian faith than all other places in the globe combined,” said Ryan Brown, the CEO Of Open Doors U.S. “To be specific, there were 4,998 Christians that were killed because of their faith in Nigeria last year.”

The primary culprits behind the religious violence are the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram, the Islamic State of West Africa Province, and Muslim Fulani militants.

“When the Fulani gunmen came to attack, they could be heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest), we will destroy all Christians,'” said one witness, according to the report. Another witness said that “the Fulani started to shoot, burning houses. They burnt our animals and maize plants.”

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) reported that, between October of 2019 and September of 2023, at least 16,769 Christians were killed in Nigeria. At its peak, Christianity accounted for 49% of the Nigerian population; but as a result of the violence, many Christians have been forced to either convert to Islam or flee to other areas of the country, with the latter resulting in over 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria in the year 2014.

And the anti-Christian violence does not stop at Nigeria’s borders. Brown stated that “throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, we are seeing an increase in violence, in the persecution, and that can take the form of physical, violent attacks. It can take the form of destruction of property. It can take the form of looting.”

“Without some type of intervention, the trend is that it is continuing to worsen,” Brown warned.