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How many Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2015?
Executive Summary
Since 2015 there is no single, verifiable tally of how many Christians have been killed in Nigeria; credible reports and NGOs produce widely divergent figures that range from several thousand per year to cumulative totals cited as high as 50,000–100,000 across the Boko Haram era, with major concentrations after 2015. Recent NGO and monitoring reports — including country briefings and religious‑freedom observatories — agree that Nigeria accounts for the largest share of faith‑related Christian deaths globally in recent years, but they disagree sharply on methodology, timeframes, and whether fatalities are concentrated in conflicts with Islamist insurgents, Fulani‑herder violence, or criminal gangs [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Figures that shock: big totals, big disagreements
Published claims about Christian fatalities in Nigeria are inconsistent and often incompatible, with some organisations compiling multi‑year aggregates in the tens of thousands while others report annual counts in the low thousands. One NGO narrative cites a broad range of 50,000–100,000 Christians killed since the Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 but does not isolate the post‑2015 period; it also reports that recent years saw thousands of deaths annually and over 9,500 deaths in two central states between May 2023 and May 2025 [1]. By contrast, a contemporaneous study year (2024–2025) attributed 3,100 Christian deaths in Nigeria alone — a single‑year figure that made Nigeria the deadliest country for Christians globally in that reporting period [2]. The variance reflects different scopes, definitions, and counting methods, with some sources counting all violent deaths in Christian‑majority areas and others attributing deaths explicitly to faith‑motivated attacks.
2. Recent snapshots: 2023–2025 spike and regional concentration
Multiple recent reports converge on the finding that 2023–2025 saw a sharp rise in reported Christian fatalities concentrated in central states such as Benue and Plateau. A parliamentary briefing recorded that in 2023 Nigeria accounted for roughly 82% of the world’s recorded faith‑related Christian deaths (about 4,098 for that year), and an NGO report documented 8,222 Christian deaths across Nigeria in 2023, implicating insurgents, armed gangs, and state forces in the violence [5] [4]. Observatories tracking October 2019–September 2023 estimate 16,769 Christian deaths during that window, pointing to sustained high levels of violence over several years [3]. These snapshots show concentrated regional violence rather than a uniform nationwide pattern, but they also illustrate how annual tallies can rapidly change the cumulative picture.
3. Methodology matters: why counts diverge so widely
Divergent totals stem from competing methodologies: some actors compile incident‑level data from media and local NGOs and attribute motive or victims’ religion; others extrapolate from incomplete local reports or include all civilians killed in mixed‑conflict zones. Open‑source monitoring groups versus faith‑based organisations and national NGOs use different thresholds for inclusion, and some reports explicitly acknowledge gaps or reluctance to attribute motive for every killing [6] [7]. The result is a spectrum of plausible estimates rather than a single authoritative number. Analysts warn that conflating deaths from criminal banditry, communal land disputes, pastoralist violence, and explicitly religious attacks inflates certainty; each count must therefore be read against its stated definitions and data‑collection limitations.
4. Political framing and potential agendas in the numbers
The reporting ecosystem includes faith‑based activists, national NGOs, international monitors, and government or parliamentary briefings, each with distinct priorities that can shape headline figures. Faith organisations highlight faith‑targeted killings to press for international attention and policy responses; national bodies may emphasise broader security breakdowns that implicate multiple actors; parliamentary briefings aim to inform lawmakers but sometimes compress complex data into headline statistics [1] [7] [5]. This multiplicity of voices produces confirming narratives — that Christians are disproportionately affected — while also opening the door for selective use of figures in political debate. Readers should therefore treat single‑figure claims cautiously and look for transparency about methods.
5. What the evidence supports: cautious conclusions and gaps
The weight of available reporting supports three firm conclusions: Nigeria has been the global epicentre of reported faith‑related Christian deaths in recent years; thousands of Christians have been killed since 2015, with particularly deadly years in the early 2020s; and precise cumulative totals remain contested because of divergent counting methods and incomplete field data [2] [4] [3]. What remains unresolved is a validated, peer‑reviewed aggregate for 2015–present. Closing that gap would require coordinated, transparent methodology across monitors, consistent victim‑level coding of motive and identity, and improved access to conflict zones — steps that current reports repeatedly call for but have not yet achieved [6] [7].