The Anambra-based nongovernmental organisation called International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety), headed by Christian Emeka Umeagbalasi, released a statement on Thursday highlighting the impact of the atrocities committed by terrorists across Nigeria thus far in 2020. 

The report, based on days of forensic research, warns that militant Fulani herdsmen roaming the country’s rural Middle Belt states and terrorists affiliated with Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province in Nigeria’s northeast region have “intensified their anti-Christian violence.”

The group reports the killing of “no fewer than 620 defenceless Christians and wanton burning or destruction of their centres of worship and learning” in 2020. According to the statement, Fulani radicals are responsible for killing over 470 people in the first four-and-a-half months of 2020. The group reports that Fulani killed 140 Christians from the beginning of April until the 14th of May. 

“The atrocities against Christians have gone unchecked and risen to alarming apogee with the country’s security forces and concerned political actors looking the other way or colluding with the Jihadists,” the organisation argues. Intersociety relies on what it deems to be credible local and foreign media reports, government accounts, reports from international rights groups and eyewitness accounts to compile its statistical reports and updates. 

The organisation reported in a March statement that at least 350 Christians were killed in January and February. Fulani radical attacks in the Middle Belt of Nigeria account for 250 of the deaths; Boko Haram terrorists are responsible for a further 50 to 100 killings. 

Additionally, the group reported at the time that between 11,500 and 12,000 Christians had been killed in Nigeria since June 2015. According to Intersociety, radical herdsmen accounted for the killing of over 7,400 Christians and Boko Haram groups accounted for 4,000 murders.

While conflicts between Fulani herdsmen and predominantly Christian agricultural communities in the farming-rich Middle Belt states have existed for decades, advocates warn that Fulani attacks in recent years have increased in severity as well as quantity. Fulani radicals are often armed with firearms when conducting their overnight attacks on sleeping farming villages. As a result, many farming communities have been pushed off their lands. 

Intersociety’s findings come as the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated last year that at least 27,000 people have been killed by the Boko Haram conflict in northeast Nigeria since 2009. International advocacy groups have also raised concerns that the violence against Christians in Nigeria has reached the level of genocide.

Source: christianpost.com