Fulani Violence Ignored in U.S. Nigeria Rights Report

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photo by US State Dept.

Human Rights Activists Call U.S. State Department Report ‘Deeply Flawed’

By Ebere Inyama

“There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Nigeria during the year 2024“, the U.S. Department of state reports in a recent publication on its website. Though the conclusion shocked activists who rejected the assertions contained in the U.S. government’s report and called the State Department’s work “deeply flawed.”

Kyle Abts, executive director on International Committee on Nigeria  (ICON) rejected the report.

According to Abts, “The 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria is deeply flawed. Its opening claim that ‘There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Nigeria during the year’ is indefensible. How can that be said when Fulani militant bandit gangs continue to devastate the Northwest through killings, kidnappings, and village raids? In March 2024, nearly 400 people were abducted in Kaduna State, including 287 schoolchildren—many of them girls.”

“Human rights advocates like myself feel the just-released U.S. Department of State’s 2024 Human Rights Report missed the mark on Nigeria; indeed, they didn’t even hit the target,” said Dede Laugesen, director of Save the Persecuted Christians. “The Nigerian government—and their friends at the U.S. State Department—refuse to acknowledge the almost daily attacks in these Christian Middle Belt states or the plight of victims. The Nigerian government and military control the narrative and threaten witnesses and journalists to remain silent. And, because there’s rarely any official account of the attacks, they’re treated as though they never happened.

Laugesen then makes an important allegation, “As a consequence, victims in the Middle Belt receive no government assistance and no attempt to restore them to their homes and villages, which are being taken over and renamed by Muslim terrorists from the Fulani tribe with tacit government approval and impunity.”

According to the U.S. report titled ‘ 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Nigeria’, the security situation in Nigeria in the year 2024 was marred by “arbitrary and unlawful killings; disappearances; torture and arbitrary arrests and detention”.

“Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa conducted numerous attacks on government and civilian targets, resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries, widespread destruction of property, and internal and external displacement with more than 3.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north east region while in the southeast region, individuals believed to be associated with the Eastern Security Network, the armed wing of the separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, staged attacks on security personnel, civilians, and government offices, including police stations, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, destruction of property, and reduction in economic activity”, the report stated.

“There were mass killings by criminal gangs nearly every month in the northwestern states”, the report added.

Abts pointed out that the State Department failed to highlight that many of these attacks were perpetrated by one group.

“The report entirely omits that Fulani militants are responsible for widespread attacks against both Christians and non-Fulani Muslims across the North West, Middle Belt, and North East,” Abts said. “By contrast, the 2023 International Religious Freedom Report does explicitly cite Fulani as major perpetrators of violence. Secretary Blinken and the State Department had an important opportunity to highlight these atrocities and press for accountability. Instead, by downplaying or ignoring Fulani-linked violence, the U.S. appears to maintain a troubling hands-off approach that emboldens perpetrators and abandons victims.”

Laugesen shared a similar concern.

“This milk toast U.S. human rights report also fails to mention the 2023 Black Christmas massacres in Plateau, which rocked the region well into 2024, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Christians. According to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) from 2019-2024 is responsible for 47% of all civilian killings documented in Nigeria, which is more than five times the combined death toll of Boko Haram and ISWAP during the same period,” Laugesen said.

And Laugesen pointed toward the Fulani as perpetrators of this violence.

“The U.S. report talks about Boko Haram, ISWAP and Biafra, but not a mention is made of the violent Muslim Fulani militia kidnapping and killing in the Christian Middle Belt states of Benue, Plateau and Kaduna, where between 3 to 5 million, according to some reports—and which I have seen with my own eyes—are internally displaced and living in very harsh circumstances without government assistance. The Fulani are a Muslim dominate nomadic tribe violently taking farming and grazing lands they don’t own, with the government complicit in silence and implementing restrictions on independent reporting, giving Fulani militants support, and keeping international attention away from the active genocide taking place. In fact, Benue, where 90 percent of the population self-identifies as Christian, hosts over 2 million IDPs, the largest population of IDPs in Nigeria,” Laugesen said.

Reports of Christian genocide in Nigeria prompts response from the U.S government

Following the killing of 200 Christians in Yelewata, a town in Benue state, by the Fulani ethnic militia on Friday, 13^th June, 2025, a delegation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) led by Jessie Ainslie and the United States Congressional staffers visited Benue State to express sympathy and support for the families of the victims, according to a report by New Telegraph.

The team, which was made up of eight U.S congressional staffers, said their visit is part of a fact-finding mission to assess the humanitarian situation and evaluate the effectiveness of U.S aid in Nigeria.

Pope Leo XIV reacts

Speaking during a recent address to a congregation at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV described the killings in Yelewata as a “terrible massacre.” 

“Most of the victims were internal refugees who were hosted by a local Catholic mission,” the pontiff said, and called for prayers for the “security, peace and justice, particularly for rural Christian communities of Benue state who have been relentless victims of violence.”

Advocacy groups echo report of Christian genocide in Nigeria

In its 2025 World Watch List (WWL) report, a non-denominational international Christian ministry, Open Doors International, categorized the persecution types in Nigeria into 4, namely, Islamic Oppression, Ethno – religious hostility, Dictatorial Paranoia, and Organised Corruption and Crime.

“While Christians used to be vulnerable only in the Muslim-majority northern states, this violence continues to spread into the Middle Belt and even further south”, the group reported on its website.

“The attacks are shockingly brutal. Many believers are killed, particularly men, while women are often kidnapped and targeted for sexual violence”, the report continued.

“More believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world”, the report added.

In the same vein, an advocacy group, Save the Persecuted Christians, suggested that the killings in Yelewata was a retaliation for Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi’s testimony before the U.S. Congress and at the U.K. Parliament in March, 2025.

In the British Parliament in March, Bishop Anagbe said his flock had seen their homes torched by the Fulani militia and were forced to flee to camps set up for people who are internally displaced, according to the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need. 

The Danger ahead

In a documentary released at a press briefing held on 24 July, 2024 in Washington D.C by a non-profit organization, Equipping the Persecuted, a journalist working for TruthNigeria, Mr. Masara Kim, raised alarm over the fate of the United States of America if Islamic jihadists succeed in taking over the whole of Nigeria.

“The plan of the terrorists is not just to take Plateau state or central Nigeria but to take the whole of Nigeria, and taking the whole of Nigeria is central to capturing the whole of the African continent”, Kim said in the documentary.

” The terrorists, without having a foothold on the mineral deposits in Nigeria, are able to acquire anti – aircraft machines, heavy duty machine guns, rocket launchers and even drones with which they were able to take out entire communities”, he continued.

“ Imagine what they can achieve by the time they get hold of Plateau state with all its vast mineral deposits, it’s columbite and uranium, Niger state with all its gold and diamond and of course they are even pushing to the oil rich south of Nigeria”, Kim continued.

“The plan of the terrorists is not just to take Plateau state or central Nigeria, but to take the whole of Nigeria and taking the whole of Nigeria is central to capturing the whole of the African continent.

“By the time they get hold of all of these resources, what warhead can they not acquire? What missile can they not acquire? What nuke can they not acquire?

“What that essentially means is that they will be able to launch attacks as far as the United states and that means another 9/11 is possible”, he  added.

A group’s perseverance anchored on Christian faith

Despite growing persecution, Nigerian Catholics hold tight to their faith.

The confirmation of nearly 1,000 Catholics in Nigeria’s south east has underscored the growth of the church in the West African country.

Auxiliary Bishop, Ernest Obodo of Enugu Diocese, in the southeastern part of Nigeria, conferred the sacrament of confirmation on 983 people at the Holy Ghost Cathedral on June 4, 2025.

Father Aneke attributed the huge number of confirmations to several factors, including the increased longing of people for the sacraments, positive evangelization initiatives by both pastors and lay ministers, and proper catechesis and deepening of faith.

Ebere Inyama reports on conflict for TruthNigeria.

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