A comprehensive four-year study conducted by researchers from the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) has revealed that Nigeria recorded 55,910 deaths between October 2019 and September 2023.
The report, which monitors religious freedoms and documents human rights violations across Nigeria, highlights the alarming levels of violence and its impact on vulnerable groups.
Peace advocate Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam acknowledged the findings, noting that these violent acts are part of a broader strategy aimed at destabilizing and terrorizing communities. The study found that the majority of violence occurred in the North Central Zone and Southern Kaduna, regions notorious for mass killings, abductions, and family torture, with limited intervention from security forces.
The report, detailed in a statement released on Thursday, August 29, by Frans Vierhout, a Data Scientist at ORFA, identified the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) as a primary perpetrator of violence. Despite the concentration of military resources in the North-East and North-West, the FEM’s atrocities often occur 100 miles away from these areas, particularly in the North Central region.
According to the statement, over 11,000 incidents of extreme violence were recorded nationwide during the study period, resulting in more than 55,000 deaths and 21,000 abductions. Specifically, the North Central Zone experienced 3,007 incidents of extreme violence, including 2,010 killings, 700 abductions, and 297 cases involving both killings and abductions.
The FEM was responsible for at least 42 percent of civilian deaths, with Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) responsible for an additional 10 percent. The report described the FEM as an ethnoreligious terror group, likened by security experts to Islamist groups that also engage in killings and kidnappings in Northern Nigeria. The most common form of violence involved land-based attacks on small Christian farming communities, accounting for 81 percent of civilian deaths.
FEM’s attacks on Christian settlements often include killing, rape, abduction, and the burning of homes. During the reporting period, 2.7 Christians were killed for every Muslim, although both Christian and Muslim communities suffered at the hands of Islamist extremists. In states where these attacks occurred, the proportional loss to Christian communities was exceptionally high, with 6.5 times as many Christians being murdered as Muslims.
The ORFA study also revealed a significant increase in abductions over the four years. The data showed that 1,665 people were abducted in 2020, rising to 5,907 in 2021, 7,705 in 2022, and 6,255 in 2023. Christians were found to be 1.4 times more likely to be abducted than Muslims, with an estimated 5.1 Christians abducted for every Muslim in affected areas. The research emphasized that this pattern of kidnappings, particularly by the FEM, underscores the targeted nature of violence against Christian communities.
