THE SILENT GENOCIDE
🎯 WHO’S BEHIND THE KILLINGS?
The Three Main Perpetrators
1. Fulani Militants
Predominantly Muslim herders who have conducted systematic attacks on Christian farming communities. These aren’t random conflicts over land—they follow a pattern of targeting churches, clergy, and Christian villages.
Key Pattern: Attacks occur during church services, Christmas, Easter, and other Christian holidays. Villages are burned, churches destroyed, and survivors driven from their ancestral lands.
2. Boko Haram
Islamic extremist group whose name literally means “Western education is forbidden.” They’ve explicitly stated their goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate and eliminating Christian presence in northern Nigeria.
- Kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014 (majority Christian)
- Routinely attacks churches and Christian communities
- Forces convert to Islam under threat of death
3. Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP)
A Boko Haram splinter group pledged to ISIS. More organized and even more brutal in their targeting of Christians.
📍 WHERE IT’S HAPPENING
The violence is concentrated in Nigeria’s Middle Belt—the region where the Muslim-majority north meets the Christian-majority south:
- Plateau State – Once called “The Home of Peace and Tourism,” now a killing field
- Benue State – Known as “the food basket of the nation,” now depopulated
- Kaduna State – Frequent church bombings and mass kidnappings
- Taraba, Adamawa, Southern Kaduna – Systematic displacement of Christians
Critical Context: These attacks aren’t happening in war zones. They’re happening in what should be peaceful farming communities, during church services, in people’s homes at night.