Christmas is traditionally a time for peace and celebration as Christians around the world gather to commemorate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. However, for Christians in Nigeria, this past Christmas was anything but peaceful when radical Islamic militants killed more than 140 of Christians and wounded many more in a chain of attacks targeting several Nigerian villages between Dec. 23 and Christmas Day. With nearly 5,000 Christians murdered in 2023 (accounting for 82 percent of all religious-based murders of Christians worldwide), Nigeria has earned the tragic accolade as the world’s deadliest place to be a Christian, which is why the United States must not turn a blind eye to these atrocities and designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.
The threat to Nigerian Christians has escalated in intensity and expanded beyond Islamic State-affiliated groups, with an increased rate of religiously motivated violent attacks against Christian communities by militant Islamist Fulani tribesmen. The Nigerian government has been grossly negligent in its failure to suppress the expansion of religious violence into the Christian-majority southern states. Simultaneously, in the Muslim-majority northern states, there have been repeated instances of extrajudicial mob violence against individuals accused of blasphemy, who are often detained indefinitely without trial by local courts unconstitutionally enforcing Sharia law.
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John Rose represents Tennessee’s 6th District. William Roberts is a government relations associate for In Defense of Christians (IDC).
Comment by JoeR on March 22, 2024 at 6:53 pm
And our government is deadly silent as the slaughter continues there, in other African countries and portions of India.
Pitiful