1,470 Nigerian Christians killed in four months

A rights group, International Society for Civil Rights and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) has said 1,460 Christians have been killed in Nigeria between January and April.

The group added that investigations have shown that 2,200 persons have also been abducted within the same period.

The allegations were made in a statement signed by the principal officers of the group, including its chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT), which was made available to THISDAY in Awka, Anambra State.

The group in the statement said: “Nigeria has devastatingly remained the ‘country most Christians are killed’ and ‘most dangerous place to be a Christian’ as well as Africa’s newest hotbed of Islamic Jihad and religious intolerance.

“Statistically shocking is the fact that the country had in the past four months- from January to April 2021-lost no fewer than 1,470 Christians. Also, out of estimated 3,200 defenseless Nigerians abducted by jihadists during the period, Nigerian Christians accounted for no fewer than 2,200.

“The 1,470 Christian deaths in four months is the highest number recorded since 2014, and it specifically surpassed the total number of Christians killed in 2019, estimated by the Open Doors to be 1,350.”

The group recalled that in early January 2021, more than 2,400 defenseless Christians were hacked to death by jihadists in Nigeria in 2020, adding that the latest research investigation it conducted took weeks and cut across all the troubling Christian areas in the country with Kaduna recording the highest number of 300 Christian deaths, according to THISDAY.

Intersociety chronicled the Christian killings in the country to have taken place in states like Ebonyi, Enugu, Anambra, Taraba, Adamawa, Imo and many others.

It said: “The research and investigation projected from interviews and open-source reported that 220 Christians are most likely to have died or been killed in captivity of their abductors.”

The group, therefore, called on the federal government to wake up and stem the tide of killings in the country.