Nigeria: ECLJ Submits Evidence of Anti-Christian Massacres Ahead of UN Special Rapporteur’s Visit

Article Completion

United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Nazila Ghanea will conduct an official visit to Nigeria from 8 to 19 June 2026. The ECLJ has submitted a report documenting large-scale violence targeting Christian communities in northern Nigeria. Relying on field testimonies and hospital records, we call for an international reaction.

According to Intersociety, more than 7,000 Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria during the first 220 days of 2025 alone. An additional 1,400 were killed just between January 1 and April 6, 2026. It is in this alarming context that Ms. Nazila Ghanea, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, planned an official visit to Nigeria from 8 to 19 June 2026. Following her call for input, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) seized the opportunity to submit a critical report documenting the grim reality of Christians in Nigeria.

The report includes hospital data, names of victims and eyewitness testimonies, collected by the Nigerian NGO “Solutions To Our Generation” (STOG), which has been assisting persecuted Christian communities in the country since 2011.

The violence against Christians in Nigeria is predominantly concentrated in the northern part of the country. Over the last two decades, northern Nigeria has experienced severe and persistent insecurity caused by insurgency, armed banditry, and religious violence. Against this backdrop, attacks targeting Christian-populated communities have multiplied.

Plateau State

Plateau State has been the scene of some of the deadliest attacks in the country. Between May 2023 and May 2025, more than 2,630 people were reportedly killed in this State, with victims predominantly belonging to Christian farming communities, according to Amnesty International.[1] Several attacks in 2026 have further increased the death toll.

The most recent attack occurred on 8 May 2026, at approximately 12:20 a.m., in Ngbra-Zongo village, Kwall District. Fulani ethnic militias allegedly carried out the assault, using a heavy rainstorm as cover while moving from house to house, shooting some residents and hacking others with machetes. Thirteen Christians were killed, including three pregnant women. Dozens of others were wounded, while hundreds fled their homes.[2]

Just one month earlier, on 9 April 2026, unidentified gunmen entered Mbwelle village in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State. They opened fire at around 11:00 p.m. and continued shooting for nearly an hour, killing eight members of the same family.[3] The victims were buried the next day during a mass funeral led by Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, who stated that “most of the victims are Christ Apostolic Church members.”[4]

The ECLJ’s submission to the Special Rapporteur also documented earlier attacks in Plateau State, including assaults in Bokkos, Bassa, Riyom, and Mangu Local Government Areas, where hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands displaced.

Benue State

Violence against Christians has also been widespread in Benue State.

The deadliest attack took place during the night of 13 June 2025 and continued into the early hours of 14 June. According to survivor testimonies gathered by local partners and included in the ECLJ report, alleged Fulani militants entered the village of Yelewata late at night and attacked residents as they slept. The assailants reportedly arrived on motorcycles around 10:00 p.m., set homes ablaze, and killed fleeing civilians with firearms and machetes. The attackers reportedly mutilated and burned some of the victims’ bodies[5] and were heard chanting “Allahu Akbar” during the raid.[6] More than 200 people were killed, many of them displaced Christian families sheltering in a Catholic mission compound.[7]

Violence in Benue State has continued unabated. In February 2026 alone, at least 33 Christians were reportedly killed and nine abducted.[8] Likewise, during Easter weekend in 2026, up to 26 Christians were murdered during church services across Nigeria, including 17 in Benue State.[9]

Kaduna State

The situation also remains deeply alarming in other parts of the country. In April 2026, suspected Fulani Islamists reportedly ambushed a truck transporting Christian schoolchildren back to school in Kaduna State. Nine people were abducted, while another child reportedly died attempting to flee.[10] The ECLJ submission further documented coordinated attacks in Kaduna State in February 2025, where more than 100 people were reportedly killed and entire villages devastated.

The Root of the Violence

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with more than 220 million inhabitants, broadly divided between a majority Muslim north and a majority Christian south. Part of the violence stems from longstanding disputes over land and resources between predominantly Muslim Fulani herders and sedentary Christian farming communities. Desertification and environmental pressures have pushed Fulani populations southward from the Sahel, intensifying competition over land and water resources.[11] But resource competition is not the driving force behind this violence. One only has to look at the sheer number of Christians slaughtered to understand it is, in its essence, a systematic, organized, and brutal religious persecution.

Unfortunately, although the religious dimension of the violence is extremely evident, it is too often denied, dismissed, and overlooked. Twelve northern Nigerian states operate under Sharia law and have witnessed a growing influence of local Islamist actors, including the Hisbah religious police, armed groups, and traditional Islamic authorities.

Since the early 2000s, the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has sought to establish an Islamic State governed by Sharia law, targeting both Christians and Muslims deemed insufficiently religious. However, by far the largest and deadliest threat to Christians in Northern Nigeria comes from the Fulani militant groups.

The ECLJ’s submission to the UN Special Rapporteur highlights repeated attacks against identifiable Christian communities, the destruction of churches, assaults carried out during Christian religious observances, and the recurring targeting of Christian civilians.

The current political context adds a further layer of concern. Since 2023, Nigeria has been governed by President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, who are both Muslims. This breaks the long-observed informal principle of balancing the country’s highest offices between Muslims and Christians. Critics argue that this configuration has been accompanied by a reluctance to acknowledge or address the religious dimension of the violence, while perpetrators continue to benefit from widespread impunity, with some local State actors allegedly implicated in facilitating or enabling attacks.[12]

The ECLJ Calls for International Action

In its report submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the ECLJ stressed the urgent need for an independent international investigation into these attacks, alongside stronger protection mechanisms for vulnerable communities.

This is not the first time the ECLJ has voiced its concern about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria before the United Nations. Since 2013, the ECLJ has raised this issue thirty-five times with actions that include hosting a side event, submitting numerous written reports, participating in multiple Universal Periodic Reviews, and presenting oral interventions. Most recently, on May 23, 2026, the ECLJ submitted a written statement to the Human Rights Council documenting the latest wave of attacks.

Unfortunately, the situation has continued to deteriorate. In the past 17 years, over one hundred thousand Christians have been killed, millions displaced, tens of thousands abducted, thousands of churches destroyed, thousands of Christian communities decimated, and tens of thousands of acres of land stolen, all while survivors remain without protection or justice. Therefore, the ECLJ seeks to ensure that the plight of Nigeria’s Christian communities receives sustained international attention and concrete action.

____

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/05/nigeria-mounting-death-toll-unchecked-attacks-armed-groups/

[2] https://www.christiandaily.com/news/fulani-terrorists-kill-13-christians-in-plateau-state-nigeria#:~:text=Muslim%20Fulani%20gunmen%20killed%20the,three%20pregnant%20women%2C%20he%20said

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/05/09/blessed-sacrament-stolen-from-nigerian-adoration-chapel/#:~:text=On%20May%208%2C%202026%2C%20Fulani,20%20a.m.%20while%20residents%20slept

[3] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/870676-gunmen-kill-eight-in-fresh-plateau-attack.html

[4] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/04/jos-eight-buried-in-mass-funeral-as-bokkos-mourns-night-attack-victims/

[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/charred-bodies-shattered-lives-after-gunmen-kill-100-nigeria-2025-06-17/

[6] https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/fulani-jihadists-massacre-over-200-christians-in-nigeria#:~:text=This%20mass%20killing%20is%20part,%E2%80%93%20Edikwu%2DAnkpali%2C%20Apa%20County&text=Ihyula%2C%20this%20isn't%20random,being%20allowed%20to%20do%20it.%E2%80%9D

[7] https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-06/pope-terrible-massacre-guma-yelwata-benue-state-nigeria.html

[8] https://truthnigeria.com/2026/02/fulani-terrorists-kill-33-christians-in-72-hours-in-benue/

[9] https://ishr.org/nigeria-largely-unnoticed-the-killing-of-christians-continues/#:~:text=At%20least%2026%20Christians%20were,north%2Dcentral%20state%20of%20Kaduna

[10] https://www.barnabasaid.org/gb/news/islamists-abduct-six-christian-schoolchildren-three-adults-in-kaduna-sta/