Trump must not ignore Nigeria's humanitarian crisis 

Christians in Nigeria are becoming modern-day martyrs. People of faith must raise our voices to respond to their plight. 

I read the account of the horrific terror attack on June 13, where over 200 Christians were slaughtered in Yewalta, Nigeria, while I was taking a break at the local pool with my youngest son. According to one report, “the corpse of a boy, around 6 or 7 years old, lay flat on his back, his eyes wide open, his shirt covered in blood. His killer had left a giant gash across his face and head. His left hand was hanging loose at the joint; his right hand was severed completely.” My son is not that much older than the boy described in the photograph.  

I was shaken to my core. I’m unsure whether the mother of the young martyr escaped the attackers. If she is among the few survivors, she will need to draw deeply on her faith in order to believe in a loving God in heaven caring for the son she had lost.   

Yewalta is just one recent example of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. Sixty-eight Christians were murdered in Fulani raids two weeks earlier. One of the attacks was on the hometown of Catholic Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi, who had recently testified before the U.S. Congress about atrocities in his diocese. Over 170 Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt were killed earlier this year during Lent and Holy Week. Last week, three young Catholic seminarians were kidnapped at gunpoint in their seminary, more evidence of the growing targeted assaults on priests and seminarians.

Open Doors, the Christian relief agency, includes Nigeria among the worst affected countries in its World Watch List, reporting that in 2024 over 3,000 Christians were killed there and more than 2,000 were kidnapped. Also, staggeringly large numbers of Christians in Nigeria have been driven from their homes by violence and conflict and are now live in displacement camps. 

Pope Leo XIV, who visited Nigeria several times as Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, prayed for the victims of the “terrible massacre” in Yewalta the following Sunday during his Sunday Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops similarly called for prayers for “our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who are suffering violent religious conflict” during Religious Freedom Week celebrated last month. Christian relief organizations are responding to the grave humanitarian crisis that is unfolding.   

World leaders must follow suit. Having vowed to rid anti-Christian bias from the U.S. federal government, President Trump and his administration are perfectly poised to take the lead.   

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, empowers the president to annually review the status of religious freedom in every country in the world and designate each country the government of which has engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” as "countries of particular concern."

This determination has been delegated by the president to the secretary of State. While Nigeria was last listed as a country of particular concern for its affronts to religious freedom in 2020, it was bizarrely dropped from the list by the Biden administration in 2021. Biden’s State Department blamed climate change for the increasingly violent attacks against Christians by militants among the Fulani Muslim nomadic herders.

Congress should take action on the proposed resolution issued back in March by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa chair, calling for Nigeria to be designated and sanctioned as a country of particular concern.

In the aftermath of the Yewalta massacre, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan commission that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad, similarly renewed its call for the Department of State to designate Nigeria a country of particular concern, citing its “systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.”  

Speeding up the confirmation of former-Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) as President Trump’s ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom will help Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a long-time advocate for international religious freedom, guarantee that diplomatic relations with Nigeria are better informed by reality. 

Terror-stricken Nigerian Christians deserve our attention and more. Given the uptick in numbers and the increasing barbarism of recent killings, I fear that that a mere designation is not enough. Maybe there is a better label for what’s happening to Christians in Nigeria: genocide.   

Genocide has been declared in at least six other situations: Bosnia (1993); Rwanda (1994); Iraq (1995); Darfur (2004); against Yazidis, Christians and Muslims in areas of the Middle East under the control of the Islamic State (2016 and 2017); against the Uyghur in the Xinjiang region of China (2021); and Sudan (2025). More recent declarations include instances where non-state actors targeted victims because of their religious identity — which is what is happening in Nigeria. 

Although there are no specific or immediate required consequences that follow a declaration of genocide, it does carry moral weight. An acknowledgment that the violence against Christians in Nigeria has reached the level of genocide could inspire a global response of humanitarian aid, economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and even intervention by the UN Security Council, not to mention action by the International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals and regimes responsible.

The awful, inescapable truth is that in Nigeria, Christians are being relentlessly persecuted, kidnapped, tortured and killed for their faith. They have confidence in what Jesus promised in His Sermon on the Mount to those who are persecuted on account of their faith — “your reward will be great in heaven.” If we remain silent to their plight, I shudder to think of what we merit. 

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is director of the Conscience Project.