Christians in Nigeria Face Extremist Attacks

“Millions of Christians are displaced here. News doesn’t cover it. Politicians, they don’t talk about it. Governments don’t talk about it. We are remaining in the darkness. As if we have been rejected.” 

Barnabas is a pastor and father of five from Benue State in Nigeria. He has been living in a makeshift tent, no bigger than a double mattress, with his family for the last five years.

He is one of thousands who escaped attacks by Islamic extremists – but saw members of their own families brutally killed.

Images courtesy of Open Doors.

“I was on the farm with my brother, Everen, and his wife, Friday,” he says. “We were walking when we heard rapid shooting of guns. We didn’t know what was happening. We saw people running in different directions. We didn’t know that the militants had surrounded us.”

Barnabas’s community was being attacked by Fulani militants belonging to one of several groups of Islamic extremists responsible for violent attacks in the northern central region of Nigeria.

“We began to ask each other, ‘What is happening?’ and said, ‘We should run, we should run,’” he says. “Some of them came with guns, some of them came with machetes, some of them came with sticks. My brother was shot by the militants, and my brother’s wife was also shot and then macheted and killed by the militants.”

Barnabas wasn’t able to stop to help his brother and sister-in-law. He had to run for his life. “I kept running,” he says. “Then the militants split up and one of them followed me.”

Barnabas only survived because he had been running toward a police checkpoint. He says, “The officers heard us and started shooting into the air. The militant who was still chasing me ran back, and that was how I was saved.”

Every year, thousands of Christians in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa are murdered in such attacks. Open Doors’ World Watch List research shows that about 95 percent of Christians killed in inter-religious conflict in 2024 were in sub-Saharan Africa. More were killed in Nigeria than in the rest of the world combined.

That doesn’t include the huge numbers of people who are injured, abducted, raped, or driven from their homes and livelihoods. The internally displaced people (IDP) camp where Barnabas lives is one of many across sub-Saharan Africa, and millions of the estimated 16.2 million displaced Christians have been forced into camps like this one.

Attacks like the one that Barnabas experienced take place with impunity in northern and central Nigeria. Sometimes Fulani militants are the perpetrators – in other attacks, Boko Haram, the Islamic State group (ISWAP), or other jihadist groups are responsible for the violence.

The role religion plays in this horrific violence is sometimes downplayed by Western governments, NGOs, and media. Illia Djadi, Open Doors’ senior analyst on freedom of religion and belief in sub-Saharan Africa, says the evidence is irrefutable. “There is good reason to believe that most of the violence has a religious dimension because of the activities of radical Islamist groups,” he says. “They have a strong Islamic ideology. It’s clearly an Islamic insurgency and they have a clear plan to establish a caliphate: an Islamic state ruled by Islamic law.”

And he says this plan by the Islamists has a clear precedent.

What ISIS did or tried to do in the Middle East – that is what they are doing in sub-Saharan Africa. They are different groups, but they have in common this Islamist ideology: they want to convert people forcibly to Islam. And that's why they attack Christians. They also attack moderate Muslims because they are not sharing this radical Islamic ideology.

Religion is the root cause of the violence and the persecution of all religious minorities in Nigeria: Christian minorities, but also other religious minorities or other believers of Islam who do not share this radical interpretation of the Quran.

Typically, attacks by Fulani militants are well-planned and coordinated, with extremists carrying military-grade assault rifles. Attackers generally drive out villagers shooting sporadically, before looting and burning down homes. Open Doors research and first-hand testimonies demonstrate that Christians are being specifically targeted.

Abraham is another survivor of an attack in Benue. Three years ago, his brother, along with seven others were killed when Fulani militants overran his village.

“There was nowhere to run to,” he says. “I ran and fell into a ditch with a lot of leaves that hid me well. Their flashlights couldn’t see me and that was how my life was spared.”

In this instance, Fulani militants warned the village that they were planning an attack. This allowed the villagers to send their wives and children away while the men stayed behind to try to protect their homes. 

At around midnight, on April 27, 2021, they heard gunshots. Abraham says his brother David was among the first to die. “They tried opening his door, but discovered it was locked from the inside, so they broke the door. My brother stood up to support the door from the inside; the killers shot him through the door. He came outside then they shot him in the head. They attached their flashlights to their guns. Once they pointed it at you and identified you as a human being, they immediately shot you.” 

As soon as it was safe, Abraham and others from his village fled, joining up with their families who were already on the run.

“You know, our land, Benue, is a good land, blessed by God,” says Abraham, who now lives in an IDP camp. He comes from the Tiv tribe, who are predominantly subsistence farmers. “A fertile land with good soil, and our attackers know that; in this country, our land is widely known as the best for farming. We are also known to be lovers of God. When they are done attacking us, they plan to take over our land because it will easily grow food for their consumption and have enough water for their drinking. They like our land and want to forcefully take it from us because we have refused to be Muslims. And they know that Tiv people are people who fear God very well and we have strong faith. They said they will finish us by killing us before they proceed to do the same in other parts of the country.”

When Christians are driven from their homes, they also lose their livelihoods and access to education. “I was in school,” says Abraham. “I was qualified to be admitted into any polytechnic or university. But due to the attack, I couldn’t further my education. I was farming to pay my tuition fees, but because the attack happened, I couldn’t continue.”

A similar threat faces Abraham’s three children.

My children have been unable to go to school because I no longer farm. We Tiv people value our farms because that is where we get our means of livelihood and pay our children’s tuition fees. Being in this camp, we have been greatly limited. I have been struggling to remain alive. Life in the camp is very difficult, as we don’t have any work to do. If we continue this way, we will be forced to move to any place not being attacked. When we don’t receive food to eat from people or organizations, we go out in search of menial jobs and use the money we are paid to buy food and other supplies.

We suffer very much in this camp and always pray God sends angels to our rescue. Some of us have to toil very hard before we can get even small portions of food to eat and survive the day. There’s almost nothing around this camp for us except bush animals, which we hunt for meat. Sometimes we hunt and sell the animals we get and make do with the proceeds.

Christians in these regions are clear; they are being targeted as Christians. However, to label the violence as entirely based on religious affiliation is to oversimplify a complex interplay of factors, says Illia Djadi:

There are a lot of narratives when it comes to violence in Nigeria. We need to distinguish the typology of the violence. It’s not one group against another.

Some narratives point to the clashes or the violence around access to natural resources. This is a common issue, which is affecting almost all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to the Central African Republic, from Sudan to Northern Cameroon. In all these countries, because of the fragility, and the impact of climate change, you have this issue of access to natural resources, because of the demography, and also because people are not respecting the corridor for grazing lands.

But in addition to this low-level conflict, there’s another conflict. In Nigeria, well-armed Fulani militants attacking predominantly Christian communities is not “clashes;” it is well-planned attacks. Attacks are happening again and again. Impunity is part of the problem; the militants are free to attack, free to kill. 

Security remains now the big issue in Nigeria. People can be kidnapped on their way to the market, on their way to school, when they are going to the church. There is no certainty. There is no guarantee of them coming back. But they will go. They will go to the church. And many have gone and never made it back. That’s the reality. 

Ashley Lindsay is a staff writer at Open Doors. Open Doors UK & Ireland is part of Open Doors International, a global NGO network which has supported persecuted Christians for over sixty years and works in over sixty countries. Open Doors provides practical support to persecuted Christians such as food, medicines, trauma care, legal assistance, safe houses, and schools, as well as spiritual support through Christian literature, training, and resources.