A report put together by an international organization, Open Doors, a Netherlands-based Christian mission that tracks global persecution and supports persecuted Christians worldwide, has revealed that more Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2025 than anywhere else in the world combined.
The report which was published by Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026 on Saturday, stated that out of over 4,849 Christians killed for their faith worldwide, 3,490 were Nigeria Christians who were killed for practicing their faith by Islamist extremist groups, terrorists like Boko Haram, ISWAP, the Lakurawa act and Fulani bandits especially in the Middle Belt of the country.
According to the report, despite denials by the Nigerian government, the country is currently at the centre of a growing global persecution crisis having been ranked in the top 50 countries by the severity of persecution faced by active Christians.
The CEO at Open Doors UK & Ireland, Henrietta Blyth, who spoke at the report’s launch at Portcullis House, London, said:
“Nigeria is in sub-Saharan Africa, a region that represents a deathtrap for Christians. In recent months the situation in Nigeria has been back in the spotlight after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to go “guns a-blazing” into the country and subsequently launched strikes on militants linked to the Islamic State group in the northwest of the country.
“We need to be critical friends. We need to be able to speak to our Nigerian counterparts, encouraging and enable them to speak truth. It’s a multilayered conflict in central Nigeria, with many causes, including religious persecution,” she said, while expressing relief that people are finally talking about what’s going on in the country.
“There are also groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), who have openly stated their ideology and want to establish an Islamic caliphate based on a radical Islamic ideology. They have a YouTube channel these days and they brag about killing infidels,” she added.
The report also shows a global increase of eight million Christians facing high levels of persecution and discrimination between October 2024 and September 2025, bringing the total to 388 million worldwide.
Also speaking at the launch of the report, the U.K.’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, David Smith, said:
“We have to be that voice that speaks on these horrendous stories. No one should live in fear because of their faith or belief. The minimum we can do is speak up, and I urge you to that.”
“The reasons for persecution in Nigeria are multifaceted and vary between regions. Ethnic Fulani herders have moved from the north to Nigeria’s middle belt, where they are causing a massive problem.
“They are moving to the area where they can find more resources for their cattle, like grazing land, and that naturally could cause a conflict between the predominantly Christian farming community and the herders who are predominantly ethnic Fulanis and Muslims.
“The least reported and the wrongly reported violence, but causing a massive problem, is the violence in the Middle Belt or north central of Nigeria by Fulani militants. That is the oversimplified one always. Now there is an emergence of an Islamic militant Fulani.”
