How many non-Christian (Muslim and other) civilians were killed in Nigeria each year 2015–2024 according to verified datasets?

1. What the major datasets say — totals, not clean religious splits

Independent violence monitors and academic reviews report high numbers of violence‑related deaths but differ on scope and attribution. The Lancet’s synthesis of multiple secondary datasets reports 63,111 violence‑related deaths between 2015 and 2023 — a broad public‑health count that aggregates terrorism, banditry, herder–farmer clashes and other causes, without allocating victims by religion in that headline figure ^[1]. ACLED, the Africa Center and similar trackers publish event‑level fatality counts and visualisations but treat religion as one of many event attributes; The Conversation author using ACLED visualised attacks and fatalities 2014–2024 but did not produce a definitive annual Muslim/non‑Muslim civilian death table in the pieces provided ^{[4] [5]}.

2. Faith‑specific tallies: conflicting methodologies and claims

Several faith‑oriented organisations produce religion‑specific civilian death estimates, but they use different databases and attribution rules. The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) and Open Doors claim civilians killed are disproportionately Christian in many areas and publish broken‑down counts; for example, a 4‑year report cited by Catholic News Agency gives civilian counts in which Christians outnumber Muslim civilian fatalities by a substantial margin (16,769 Christians vs 6,235 Muslims among 30,880 civilian deaths for that four‑year window) — but that is an organisational dataset with contested methodology ^[3]. Intersociety/Open Doors style reports assert tens of thousands of Christians killed since 2009 and large Christian casualties in 2015–2024 spans; those figures are disputed by analysts who emphasise mixed motivations (ethnic, land, criminal) and note many victims are Muslim in jihadist‑affected areas ^{[6] [7] [4]}.

3. Why you cannot extract a clean Muslim/other civilian‑death series 2015–2024 from these sources

Available sources do not publish a single, consistently verified year‑by‑year series for "non‑Christian (Muslim and other) civilian deaths" that spans 2015–2024 with uniform methodology. Datasets differ in inclusion rules (militants vs civilians, state forces, unknown‑faith victims), geographic scope (northEast only vs nationwide), and whether they infer religion from location or explicit reporting ^{[8] [5] [1]}. Some organisations explicitly caution that attacks have multiple motives (land, ethnicity, crime) and that press coverage biases complicate faith attribution — NigeriaWatch/IFRA research estimated broad uncertainty in religious affiliation among victims (minimum ~42% to maximum ~59% Muslim in certain datasets) ^[8].

4. Competing interpretations and political stakes

Faith‑based NGOs and some church leaders interpret their compiled data as evidence of targeted anti‑Christian violence and use it to call for international action; secular analysts and conflict researchers counter that many attacks are ethnic, economic or criminal in motive and that jihadist groups have also killed many Muslims, so sweeping "genocide" claims are contested ^{[3] [7] [4]}. The New York Times opinion piece and academic commentators warn against inflating claims without transparent methodology; others, including Intersociety and Open Doors, argue government inaction and local patterns show religious targeting ^{[9] [10] [2]}.

5. Best next steps to answer the original question rigorously

To produce a year‑by‑year Muslim/non‑Christian civilian death series for 2015–2024 you would need to (a) select a single primary dataset (e.g., ACLED, NigeriaWatch, ORFA), (b) obtain the raw event‑level data and its coding of victim religion (or apply a transparent coding rule for unknowns), and (c) document exclusions (combatant vs civilian, state forces, unknown‑religion). The Conversation/ACLED visualisations exist for 2014–2024 but the provided materials do not include a ready Muslim/non‑Christian annual table; likewise, ORFA/Open Doors provide religious breakdowns but use different inclusion criteria ^{[4] [2] [3]}.

6. Bottom line for readers

Available reporting shows thousands of Nigerians of all faiths were killed each year in the 2015–2024 period and that religion is one important—but contested—axis of violence; however, the sources supplied here do not agree on a single verified annual count of non‑Christian (Muslim and other) civilian deaths for every year 2015–2024, and each major dataset has methodological limits that must be disclosed before citing precise year‑by‑year religious breakdowns ^{[1] [3] [8]}.