Over 50,000 Christians killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists – report

Over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency outbreak in 2009, a newly-released report published by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety).

The report, titled “Martyred Christians in Nigeria”, was published by Intersociety, a Nigerian-based research and investigative rights group, which has been monitoring and investigating religious persecution and other forms of religious violence by state and non-state actors across Nigeria since 2010.

According to its findings, over the past 14 years, at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered by Islamist militants, more than 30,000 of whom were murdered during the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

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In the same period about 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze. Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims also died in Islamist attacks.

Within the same period, at least 707 Christians were kidnapped, out of which the northern Nigerian Niger State recorded more than 200 abductions, including the March 14, 2023 abduction of over 100 Christians in Adunu (Paikoro).

At least 101 anti-Christian abductions were recorded in Kaduna while other affected states include Katsina, Taraba, Edo, Ogun, Nassarawa, Kwara, Kogi, Borno, Yobe and Adawama Bauchi, Enugu, Imo, Kebbi, Gombe, Bayelsa and Cross River.

The report also indicated that Christians risk their lives not only at the hands of Boko Haram, but also of ethnic Fulani Muslim herders who have joined Islamist extremist groups.

The attacks have led to mass forceful displacement of Nigerians in the north where about five million Christians have been displaced and forced into internally displaced persons (IDP) camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and sub-regional borders, the Intersociety report says.

The Intersociety in its outlook for 2023 posited that nothing seems any better, with over 1,000 Christians killed since the beginning of the year, and criticised the Buhari-led administration for not doing enough to combat growing insecurity in the country.