How many attacks on Christians occurred in Nigeria in 2023 and 2024?

1. Why you won’t find a clean annual count and what the datasets actually say

Counting attacks on Christians in Nigeria by calendar year is difficult because reporting systems differ: some datasets log incidents by perpetrator motive, some by victims’ religion, and many incidents are underreported in remote areas. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) snapshot cited in the analyses records 385 attacks targeting Christians between January 2020 and September 2025, resulting in 317 deaths, but it does not break those numbers down cleanly for 2023 and 2024 in the materials provided ^[2]. USCIRF and related government reports document notable massacres and spikes—for example, incidents killing dozens in mid‑2022 and April 2023 mentioned in policy briefs—but those documents aim to describe trends, state responses and abuses rather than compile exhaustive incident lists ^{[1] [4]}. The result is overlapping, partial records that make a precise 2023 vs 2024 tally impossible from the supplied materials.

2. Independent reporting and policy briefs agree on escalation and hotspots

Independent analysts and policy bodies uniformly identify the Middle Belt and parts of the north and southeast as hotspots where attacks on civilians, including Christians, increased in the early 2020s, driven by ethnonationalist militias, Fulani-related pastoralist conflict, and jihadist groups like ISWAP/Boko Haram ^{[1] [3]}. USCIRF and country updates document security gaps and state accountability failures that allowed nonstate actors to mount attacks on places of worship and villages; those reports cite specific high-casualty events—such as killings in Benue and Plateau states—that underscore intensity but do not produce an all-inclusive count ^{[3] [1]}. Journalistic and NGO coverage complements official reporting by naming incidents and victims, but disparate methodologies lead to diverging aggregate figures.

3. Competing interpretations: targeted persecution vs complex conflict dynamics

There is a clear split in interpretation. Some political actors and faith-based organizations characterize the violence as targeted mass killings of Christians, arguing attacks are primarily sectarian. Analysts and conflict researchers push back, arguing the violence is a mix of communal, criminal and insurgent dynamics that affect Muslims and Christians and that do not meet the legal standard of genocide ^[2]. The ACLED-derived data cited in the analyses shows attacks against both Christians and Muslims, with differing casualty patterns—higher attack counts against Christians in the cited window but higher fatalities among Muslims in some datasets—illustrating why experts caution against mono-causal narratives ^[2]. These divergent framings map to different policy recommendations and advocacy agendas.

4. What the government and international bodies report about 2023–2024 responses

US government advisory and commission materials emphasize Nigeria’s deteriorating religious‑freedom environment and recommend designations such as “Country of Particular Concern,” while noting inadequate security responses and human-rights abuses by state actors that compound civilian vulnerability ^{[1] [4]}. Those reports highlight recurring patterns—church attacks, kidnappings for ransom, massacres in rural communities—but stop short of providing an authoritative incident-by-incident census for 2023 and 2024. International monitoring tends to prioritize systemic findings and policy implications, so readers should not expect those documents to substitute for crime-scene level counting undertaken by conflict-data researchers.

5. Best next steps if you need a precise number for advocacy, research or reporting

If an exact annual count for 2023 and 2024 is required, the only practical path is to triangulate multiple datasets: request disaggregated ACLED exports for those calendar years, consult NGO incident trackers and local media compilations, and contrast them with USCIRF/state reporting to reconcile definitions and duplicates. Be explicit about methodology—what qualifies as an “attack on Christians,” whether communal violence with mixed victims is included, and how double‑counting is avoided—because methodological choices will materially change the totals ^{[2] [4]}. The sources provided make clear that violence was high and that Christians suffered significantly, but they do not deliver a single, verified numeric answer for 2023 and 2024.