Nigeria Has Ranked at Maximum Violence Against Christians for 8 Years Straight
Nigeria’s Christians — nearly half the country’s population — have demonstrated “remarkable resilience and faith” in one of the world’s most violent climates of persecution, Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors, told Breitbart News over the weekend.
Open Doors, a humanitarian organization specializing in providing spiritual and emergency assistance to persecuted Christians around the world, releases its annual report “Global Watchlist“one of the most dangerous places on earth to practice faith. Nigeria ranked seventh on the list this year due to targeted jihadist attacks by various actors, including Boko Haram, Middle Belt Fulani terrorists, and organizations such as the Islamic State.
“Violence has continued unabated in Nigeria, which is why the country continues to be ranked among the top ten on the global watch list. In many cases, hundreds of Christians have been killed or displaced due to attacks by Islamic militants,” Open Doors explains in its report. profile of the country for 2025. “Most of these attacks have been carried out by militant Fulani herdsmen, who continue to target Christian communities, leading to the displacement of millions of Christians. Attacks are also being carried out by Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province, as well as new extremist groups that are emerging.”
Genocidal violence against Christians has persisted in Nigeria for more than a decade, even though the country is home to more than 100 million Christians. To highlight how unique this situation is in the world, the second country with the highest number of Christians on the top ten list is Pakistan, with around 4.8 million Christians. Christians are believed They make up about 45 percent of Nigeria’s population, with most of them in the central belt and south of the country, while the majority of the Muslim population is largely concentrated in the north.
Persecution has persisted despite the large number of vulnerable Christians and through several Nigerian presidential administrations. The current president, Bola Tinubu, has pledged to take action against rising violence, but for much of 2025 he has faced criticism that his government has done little to protect Christians. The year peaked President Donald Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious persecution and cooperated with Tinubu in airstrikes against terrorists in the northwest of the country.
Open Doors tracks persecution by monitoring, using its resources on the ground, the pressure that Christians face in their private, family, community, national and ecclesial lives. Countries are also ranked by the violence Christians face, as a separate measure.
“Nigeria has had the highest violence score (16.7 out of 16.7) for eight consecutive years,” Brown, the CEO of Open Doors, told Breitbart News in response to questions over the weekend. “During our last reporting period, 3,490 Nigerian Christians were killed because of their faith – the highest number of any country and an increase from 3,100 the previous year. »
“The violence that Christians face in Nigeria is driven by a complex convergence of Islamic militancy, ethnic conflict, poor governance, organized crime and competition for resources,” Brown noted. “Groups like Boko Haram, ISWA, Fulani militants and newer groups like Lakurawa continue to target Christian communities. »
The period covered by the annual World Watch List ends September 30; President Trump designated Nigeria as a CPC on October 31, so the action and its consequences did not affect the score this year, but will in the following reporting period.
“Anecdotally, we have heard from local partners that there have been casualties at the bases of these groups targeted by the United States, but it is difficult to speculate whether this will have a significant, moderate or no impact on the persecution in the affected regions,” Brown told Breitbart News, assuring that Open Doors would remain active on the ground providing “trauma care, emergency relief and persecution preparedness training, regardless of actions taken by external governments.
“The Nigerian Church has demonstrated remarkable resilience and faith despite years of violence,” he added.
President Trump approved military action against “Islamic State terrorist scum in northwest Nigeria” in December, announcing the Christmas Day strikes.
“I already warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the massacre of Christians there would be hell to pay, and tonight that was the case,” Trump said in a message posted on his website, Truth Social. “The War Department has executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of. Under my leadership, our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to flourish.”
Trump added: “MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone, including the dead terrorists, and there will be many more if their massacre of Christians continues. »
The move caused some international concern, but Tinubu’s government clarified that Trump did not approve a strike against Nigeria without communication with Abuja and attempted to present the strikes as proof that Tinubu was taking the persecution seriously.
“This… puts an end to any doubt about the Tinubu administration’s determination to fight terrorism,” Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said. said CNN on December 27. “This has been coordinated with the United States, in the same way that we have declared that we are ready, willing and able to collaborate, to coordinate with any foreign government engaged in the fight against terrorism. »
The latest edition of the World Watch List find that 388 million Christians live in countries where they face significant persecution because of their religious identity. The worst country in the world for Christians goes to North Korea, which consistently ranks first due to the communist regime’s designation of Christianity as a foreign imperialist weapon and extreme violence against suspected Christians. Syria, facing a radical change of regime after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024, pink Twelve places in sixth place are jihadist organizations, some associated with the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government, which target Christians with violence.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook And Twitter.
