Christian farming communities face attacks as US report identifies Fulani militants as Nigeria’s deadliest threat

(SeaPRwire) –   JOHANNESBURG — A significant new report indicates that roughly 30,000 predominantly Muslim Fulani militants are active in Nigeria, contributing to “worsening insecurity and religious freedom violations.”

According to the report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), “violence by Fulani militants resulted in more fatalities within Nigeria’s religious communities over the past year than attacks by organized insurgent groups and criminal gangs.”

The USCIRF report notes that the Fulanis, traditionally livestock herders, have “targeted Christian farming communities in the Middle Belt and, to a growing extent, the South, setting fire to homes and churches while also engaging in kidnapping, rape, and murder.”

However, a former State Department counterterrorism specialist informed Digital that recent U.S.-Nigerian joint strikes in the North against groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State would be ineffective against the Fulanis in the country’s mainly Christian central regions.

Sterling Tilley, the former acting director in the Bureau of Counterterrorism with experience in Nigeria, stated that U.S. military intervention in the farmer-herder conflict “is not advisable as it could lead to greater national instability.” Tilley, currently directing the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship at Howard University, further remarked, “Certain measures could reduce the violence, but implementing them requires political will from Nigeria.”

This week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth discussed recent U.S. strikes in Nigeria ordered by President Donald Trump, noting, “Approximately a year ago, [the president] listened to the pleas of Nigerian Christians targeted and killed by ISIS. He instructed me, ‘Pete, I want the War Department dedicated to doing all we can to safeguard those Christians.'”

Christians constitute about 48% of Nigeria’s populace. The USCIRF report said Fulani militants “frequently execute attacks during Christian holidays like Christmas or Easter to amplify psychological terror, preventing communities from assembling to celebrate or worship. Attackers sometimes shout religious phrases, such as “Allahu Akbar“ (Arabic for “God is great”).

The report also clarifies that Muslims have not been exempt from attacks. “Fulani attackers have also targeted Muslims, stealing cattle from herders and launching violent assaults on Muslim communities that are not Fulani,” it added.

Henrietta Blyth, CEO of the Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors UK & Ireland, told Digital, “Violence perpetrated by Fulani tribe militants significantly exceeds that of other militant factions like Boko Haram or ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province).”

Although her group was not involved in the report, she stated, “It is heartbreaking to hear accounts from individuals who witnessed their loved ones slaughtered before them or taken into slavery.”

Blyth continued: “The crisis is complex, and as the report finds, attributing all actions to religious motives is an oversimplification. What is undeniable is that Christians are exceptionally vulnerable and frequently become victims, paying a severe price. They urgently require protection and, for the hundreds of thousands displaced, an opportunity to recover and reconstruct their lives.”

The USCIRF report further commented, “Federal and state authorities’ reactions to Fulani militant violence have frequently been criticized as inadequate at best and conspiratorial at worst.”

Tilley informed Digital that with Nigerian elections scheduled next year, “the Fulani wield substantial political clout as a voting bloc. Consequently, the government appears hesitant to enact necessary measures to curb the violence, worried about losing their support base in the North and Middle Belt.”

Digital contacted the Nigerian government for a statement but received no reply before publication.