A Christian organization announces the killing of more than 3,000 Christians in Nigeria during 2026

Allegations of targeting Christians in Nigeria were renewed on Monday, with the issuance of a report by a Christian human rights organization announcing the killing of more than 3,000 Christians in Nigeria during attacks launched by terrorist organizations since the beginning of the current year 2026.

This report brings to the fore accusations directed at the Nigerian authorities of negligence in protecting Christian communities, which are being subjected to what those with this opinion say is “genocide.” The most famous of these is US President Donald Trump, who threatened Nigeria at the end of last year with military action in order to protect Christians, and carried out several air strikes. The US army, in cooperation with the Nigerian army, also carried out military operations in Nigeria against ISIS fighters in West Africa.

Although it welcomed military cooperation with the United States, Nigeria refused to talk about “genocide” against Christian communities, stressing that terrorism targets Christians and Muslims, and all religions, races and ethnicities.

Shocking numbers

In its latest report, the International Association for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) said that thousands of Christians were subjected to killing and kidnapping over the course of 8 months, and the Nigerian human rights organization confirmed that at least 3,083 Christians were killed and 3,193 others were kidnapped in terrorist attacks between January and August 2026.

The organization stated that the months of July and August alone witnessed the killing of 437 Christians and the kidnapping of 393 others. In its report, the organization added an ethnic and sectarian dimension to the statistics, noting that 70 percent of those kidnapped during the month of August came from the southeast region, specifically travelers belonging to the Christian “Igbo” ethnicity, stressing that most of the perpetrators of the attacks were from the Muslim “Fulani” ethnicity.

In terms of targeting religious infrastructure, the Intersociety organization presented figures described as “shocking,” when it claimed that about 19,800 churches had been attacked or destroyed since July 2009. The report spoke of the destruction of 230 churches in Taraba state alone during the past year, the displacement of more than 100,000 Catholics, and the infliction of other local churches, such as the “Church of the Brethren” and the Reformed Church, heavy loss of life. And headquarters.

Doubts about the organization

Although the organization's reports resonate with some international Christian groups and conservative politicians in the United States, especially some members of the Republican Party in Congress, they collide with a wall of systematic skepticism from major independent media and research institutions.

The BBC's Global Anti-Disinformation Unit conducted an extensive investigation into the organisation's figures, concluding that its methodology was "non-transparent". The investigation indicated that the announced numbers do not match the sources cited by the organization itself, and that they rely mostly on random searches on the Internet and unverified estimates known as “dark numbers.”

These doubts were reinforced by a report published by the American newspaper “The New York Times” early this year, which painted a modest and questionable picture about the organization’s structure. The report said that the head of the organization, Omiagapalasi, “runs it from his home in the city of Onitsha, relying on secondary sources,” speaking about his admission that he did not always verify field data, an allegation that the organization was quick to strongly deny, accusing the newspaper of fabricating lies.

On the other hand, the numbers promoted by Intersociety are in stark contrast to independent databases, most notably the Independent Conflict Monitoring Project (ACLED), which show much lower rates of civilian deaths in Nigeria. The project's experts confirm that Nigerian violence cannot be reduced to a "unilateral religious genocide," but rather it is a complex conflict in which disputes over land and resources, criminal gang activity, and the weakness of the state's control intersect, making it a violence that affects Muslims and Christians alike.

Official refusal

Officially, the Nigerian authorities and the military categorically reject the “Christian genocide” narrative. Abuja confirms that terrorism strikes all components of society, noting that the majority of the victims of the “Boko Haram” group and the “ISIS in West Africa” terrorist organization are in fact Muslims.

The Nigerian government was forced to spend huge sums of money on international pressure campaigns, especially within the United States of America, in order to confront attempts to classify it as a country that persecutes Christians based on such reports. The official rejection did not stop at the point of denial, but rather went beyond directing serious political and security accusations against the organization. The Nigerian army has consistently described Intersociety as merely a propaganda front for the banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, accusing it of deliberately exaggerating and spreading lies to distort the image of the security services and incite ethnic and religious strife, which, according to observers, explains the organization’s strong focus in its reports on the oppression of the Igbo.

This cautious position is consistent with the trends of major international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which are carefully documenting violations and acts of violence in Nigeria, but they avoid adopting Intersociety’s statistics or being drawn into the overly simplistic “religious genocide” framework, stressing that the Nigerian crisis is too complex to be framed in a purely religious conflict.

Despite the doubts raised about Intersociety's reports, they often achieve great influence at the international level, especially when they are adopted by Republican representatives in Congress, who rely on them to put political pressure on Nigeria.