Over 55,910 civilians killed in Nigeria from 2019 to 2023 — ORFA Report

A group of researchers from the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) have declared that no fewer than 55,910 civilians lost their lives in the study conducted from October 2019 to September 2023.

The group, in a statement signed by its data scientist, Frans Vierhout, made available to newsmen, mentioned that the group operating under the Foundation Platform for Social Transformation is committed to monitoring religious freedoms and documenting violations of rights across Nigeria.

The research particularly focused on the protracted violence in the North Central Zone and Southern Kaduna, which have been experiencing protracted mass killings with little intervention from the security agencies.

It identified the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) as a key perpetrator of violence in Nigeria, adding that the data equally depicted that FEM’s violent activities are predominantly concentrated in the North Central Zone and Southern Kaduna, areas that have suffered significantly from their attacks, while military resources are concentrated in the North-East and North-West of Nigeria

“Across the country, over 11,000 incidents of extreme violence took place during the data period, with more than 55,000 killings and 21,000 abductions. In the North Central zone alone, 3,007 incidents of extreme violence occurred. 2,010 incidents involved killings, 700 were abduction incidents, and 297 were a combination of killings and abductions.”

“The Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) killed at least 42% of all civilians, while Boko Haram and ISWAP (‘Islamic State West Africa Province’) combined killed 10%. FEM, an ethnoreligious terror group, is considered by many security experts to be a ‘twin’ of Islamists killing and kidnapping civilians in Northern Nigeria. Land-based community attacks form the largest category of civilian killings (81%).”

“FEM invade small Christian farming settlements to kill, rape, abduct, and burn homes. 2.7 Christians were killed for every Muslim in the reporting period. Islamist extremists kill both Muslims and Christians. Although Christian death tolls are far higher.Proportional loss: in states where attacks occur, proportional loss to Christian communities is exceptionally high. In terms of state populations, 6.5 times as many Christians are being murdered as Muslims.”

The ORFA data project also indicated that the statistics within the four years of study further indicated that 1,665 people were abducted in 2020, 5,907 in 2021, 7,705 in 2022, and 6,255 in 2023.

It further noted that by the end of 2023, the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported that 3.3 million Nigerians were forcibly displaced from their homes, surviving in makeshift camps.

The group therefore called upon the international community to pay close attention to these alarming findings, emphasising the critical need for increased global involvement in combating these human rights violations.

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