How do Nigerian government and NGO casualty counts for religiously targeted killings compare for 2024 vs 2025?
Executive summary
Government and multilateral monitors report violence-related deaths in the low thousands for 2024 and sharp increases in 2025, while Christian advocacy NGOs report far larger, faith-specific casualty counts for the same periods: Open Doors (and related Christian NGOs) say about 3,100–4,118 Christians were killed in 2024 [1] [2], whereas Catholic-inspired NGO Intersociety and allied groups report more than 7,000 Christian deaths in the first 220 days of 2025 [3] [4]. Security and UN-oriented sources instead count thousands of violent deaths across all communities in 2024 and report that at least 2,266 people were killed by bandits/insurgents in the first half of 2025—surpassing all of 2024—without attributing most deaths to a single religion [5] [6] [7].
1. What the Nigerian government and UN/humanitarian sources report: aggregate violence, not faith tallies
Official or multilateral sources and mainstream humanitarians frame the crisis as widespread political and criminal violence. The UN/OCHA humanitarian plan and related UN reporting document rising civilian casualties and displacement—e.g., OCHA warned of rising civilian deaths and 2.3 million IDPs by end-2024 and that civilian casualties have increased [7]; the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect cites the National Human Rights Commission’s figure that at least 2,266 people were killed by bandits or insurgents in the first half of 2025, exceeding the total for all of 2024 [5]. U.S. State reporting and The Lancet give multi-thousand counts of violent deaths across years without isolating religion as the sole driver [6] [8].
2. NGO and advocacy tallies focused on Christians: much higher, faith-specific totals
Christian advocacy groups and Catholic-inspired NGOs produce much larger faith-specific counts. Open Doors’ World Watch List materials and Catholic news reporting cite thousands of Christians killed and kidnapped in 2024—Open Doors’ summary in media says 3,100 Christians killed and 2,830 kidnapped in 2024 [1]; other compilations cite 4,118 Christians killed for their faith in 2024 [2]. Intersociety’s August 2025 report—repeated widely in faith media—claims at least 7,087 Christians were massacred in the first 220 days of 2025, an average ~32 per day [3] [4]. European Parliament materials also reference “more than 7,000 victims” in the first seven months of 2025 [9].
3. Methodology differences explain large gaps in counts
Discrepancies stem from different methods and definitions: multilateral and academic datasets (ACLED, UN, government agencies) catalog targeted political violence across groups and often require corroboration of motive before labeling an attack as religious; these sources provide aggregate civilian-death counts (e.g., ACLED found just under 53,000 civilians killed since 2009 across faiths) and do not attribute every rural massacre to religion alone [10] [11]. By contrast, faith-based NGOs often compile media-reported incidents, include kidnappings and unverified local claims, and attribute motives to religion more readily—leading to much higher counts [1] [3]. The BBC and others warn that some NGO tallies mix all political violence with faith-based targeting, which inflates faith-specific totals [11].
4. Disagreement over drivers: religion vs. politics, land, criminality
Multiple reputable sources state the violence is complex: analysts say attacks cut across faiths and are driven by land disputes, climate stress, weak governance and criminality as much as explicit religious persecution [12] [13]. The BBC and DW highlight debate over labeling Fulani-herder violence and communal clashes as “religious” rather than resource conflict; some NGOs and church leaders assert a clear religious cleansing motive while other researchers caution against conflating ethnicity, economics and religion [11] [13].
5. Implications for comparing 2024 vs 2025 counts
Available reporting shows a rise in overall violence and in NGO-reported faith-targeted killings from 2024 to 2025: humanitarian and rights monitors document higher aggregate civilian deaths and displacement into 2025—e.g., early-2025 UN and NHRC figures show first-half 2025 deaths exceeding all of 2024 [5] [7]—while faith-based NGOs claim a dramatic spike in Christian deaths in 2025 (7,000+ in 220 days) compared with their 2024 tallies (3,100–5,000, depending on the NGO) [1] [3] [14]. These parallel trends are consistent but not directly comparable because counts use different inclusion criteria and sources [1] [3] [5].
6. What reporting does not resolve and where caution is needed
Available sources do not provide a single, government-verified breakdown of deaths by religious identity for 2024 vs 2025; official and UN datasets emphasize aggregate violence and do not independently verify faith motivation for every killing [6] [7]. Media and NGO figures diverge because of differing methodology and potential advocacy aims; faith groups' numbers are used to press for international action, while government and neutral agencies stress broader security drivers and sometimes resist faith-only framings [11] [13].
7. Bottom line for readers
If you compare counts, note two realities in the coverage: neutral and UN-aligned sources document an escalation in overall violent deaths and displacement into 2025 versus 2024 [5] [7]; faith-based NGOs report much higher, Christian-specific casualty totals in 2024 and especially 2025—Open Doors and Intersociety give very different scales—because they use different data and interpret motives differently [1] [3]. Treat faith-specific tallies as advocacy-informed estimates and juxtapose them with aggregate, methodology-transparent datasets when drawing conclusions [11] [15].