16,769 Christians Killed in Nigeria from 2020 to 2023 Amid Church Growth – New Report
- Calls for distinction between general insecurity and targeted persecution in North and Middle Belt
Our Correspondent
Christians in Nigeria face targeted persecution in the North and Middle Belt even as the country’s churches grow and expand globally, a new report from the Lausanne Movement has found.
The report, “Thriving in the Midst of Persecution: The Church in Nigeria,” released this week, documented 16,769 Christians killed in Nigeria between 2020 and 2023 compared to 6,235 Muslims killed in the same period. It describes Nigeria as having a “thriving and bleeding Church.”
The Nigerian government has rejected the characterization. The Presidency and Ministry of Information have previously stated that violence in Nigeria is driven by criminality and ethnic conflict, not religion, and that claims of Christian genocide are based on “misinformation or faulty data.”
According to data cited from the Para-Mallam Peace Foundation and the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, out of approximately 30,880 civilians killed in various forms of violence from 2020 to 2023, 16,769 were Christians.
The report said attacks in Plateau, Benue, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa and other Middle Belt states follow a pattern of nighttime raids, churches and pastoriums burned, food stores destroyed, and farmland occupied afterward.
It also cited the June 2022 attack on St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, as evidence the violence is not limited to northern states.
Citing Open Doors data, the paper noted that at the end of 2024 Nigeria had 3.4 million internally displaced persons due to violence, “many of whom are Christians.”
The Nigerian government maintains that all Nigerians suffer from banditry, kidnapping and communal conflict.
In 2025, after the United States designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” for religious freedom violations, officials said the designation was based on faulty data.
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President, Gimba Kakanda, said international criticism “mischaracterizes Nigeria’s domestic conflicts.” Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, said claims of state inaction were false.
The Lausanne report traced current violence to three factors including the legacy of the 1804 Sokoto Caliphate and British colonial “Indirect Rule,” the rise of extremist groups including Boko Haram and ISWAP, and the adoption of Sharia criminal law in 12 northern states since 1999.
It documented barriers Christians face in obtaining permits to build churches, blasphemy cases including the 2022 lynching of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto, and cases of alleged forced conversion and marriage of underage Christian girls.
In April 2025, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice ruled that certain Kano State blasphemy provisions violated international human rights standards.
The report also noted the continued captivity of Leah Sharibu, abducted in 2018, which it cited as an example of religiously motivated targeting.
International attention on the issue increased in 2025 following public comments by US talk show host Bill Maher and a statement by President Donald Trump pledging to “defend the persecuted Church and stop the ongoing genocide of Christians in Nigeria.”
The report said the global visibility of Nigeria’s mega-churches and gospel musicians sometimes obscures violence in rural areas.
“A thriving Church is not a sign of safety; rather, it is a sign of a faith that refuses to die,” the report concluded.
The Lausanne Movement said the report is part of a series to help Christians understand complex mission contexts.
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