Nigeria (MNN) — A first-of-its-kind report was just released looking at ethnic and religious violence in Northern Nigeria. The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa examined incidents of extreme violence in the region between October 2019 and September 2023.
With 30,880 civilian deaths, the report found Christians were disproportionately targeted. Christians accounted for 16,769 of civilian deaths; 6,235 Muslims were killed. The rest had no known religious affiliation.
Much of the violence in northern Nigeria came from Fulani herdsmen. Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says, “What aggravates it is the constraint of grazing land, and then the fact that the Fulani are Muslim and the farmers are Christian. So you have that religious tension that comes in there too.
“There are a lot of dynamics that are at work here; but fundamentally, Christians are being killed and…the government largely is non-responsive to these atrocities.”
(Photo courtesy of Unknown Nations)
Unknown Nations works with some Christians in southern Nigeria to go into the North with audio Bibles. But Kelley says those with the greatest heart to reach Muslims in northern Nigeria with the Gospel are Christians at risk in the North.
“That’s been our focus is, as we pray…how do we mobilize the Christians in the North? They will be the ones who will reach the Fulani. They will be the ones who reach the Hausa and the Kanuri.”
Pray for the resilience of faithful Nigerian Christians sharing Jesus in persecution. Ask God to open the eyes of Fulani Muslims to the truth of the Gospel.
“Until we get a heart for the nations that we will maybe never meet this side of eternity for the fact that they are separated from Jesus and an eternal presence with Him – until we get that conviction – then things are not going to change.”
Header photo courtesy of Tope A Asokere/Unsplash.
