Monday, October 11, 2021

World Turns Blind Eye To Intensifying Genocide Of Nigerian Christians

Since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009 -- first at the hands of Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist organization, and later by the Fulani, who are Muslim herdsmen also radicalized and motivated by jihadist ideology -- more than 60,000 Christians have either been murdered or abducted during raids. 


The abducted Christians have never returned to their homes and their loved ones believe them to be dead. In addition, in the same time frame, approximately 20,000 churches and Christian schools have been torched and destroyed.

Some of these findings are documented in an August 4, 2021 report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, also known as "Intersociety," a nonprofit human rights organization based in Nigeria. Although the entire report is worth reading, a few notable excerpts follow:

"The total number of 'direct' Christian deaths... from July 2009 to July 2021... is independently put at no fewer than 43,000.... The killings had emanated from the propagation of radical Islamism in Nigeria...

"The Islamic Jihadists and their 'esprit de jihad' in the Nigerian security forces have been responsible for at least an additional 18,500 Christian deaths arising from enforced disappearances, or those abducted and most unlikely to return alive... While most of the Muslims abducted by Jihadists in Nigeria are later released unconditionally to their families, most of their Christian counterparts are killed in captivity or forcefully converted to Islam....


"The atrocities of the Jihadists primarily directed at Christians... include: massacres, killings, mutilations, slitting of throats and wombs, beheadings, torture, maiming, abductions, hostage-taking, rape, girl-child defilements, forced marriages, disappearances, extortions, forceful conversions and destruction or burning of homes and sacred worship and learning centers as well as forceful occupation of farmlands, destruction and forceful harvesting of farm crops and other internationally prohibited acts...

"In the past twelve years... at least 17,500 churches and 2,000 Christian schools and other learning centers have been attacked by the Jihadists and destroyed in part or in whole, or burned or razed down. In the past seven months of 2021, for instance, the number of churches threatened or attacked and destroyed or burned down has risen to over 300....

"In the same past twelve years, it was also independently found that no fewer than 30 million Christians especially in Northern Nigeria [which is Muslim-majority] and their ethno-religion were threatened and ten million of them have been uprooted, six million forced to flee their homes or geopolitical locations to avoid being hacked to death and over four million displaced and became IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons]...."

Although the last month to be included in Intersociety's reporting period was July 2021, the massacres and atrocities have continued relentlessly since. A few examples just from August 2021, include: READ MORE