A six-year study has challenged widely held assumptions about Nigeria’s armed violence, arguing that groups it classifies as “Fulani Terror Groups” have killed more civilians than Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), while Christians have borne a disproportionate share of the deaths.
The report, “Killings and Abductions in Nigeria (2020–2025),” released on June 30 by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA), examined violence recorded between October 2019 and September 2025. It documented 79,323 deaths and 34,773 abductions linked to armed groups during the six-year period.
ORFA says its analysis overturns the dominant narrative surrounding Nigeria’s insecurity. According to the organisation, groups it categorises as “Fulani Terror Groups” accounted for 44% of civilian killings, while Boko Haram and ISWAP together were responsible for 12%.
“The data makes this very difficult to ignore,” Frans Vierhout, ORFA’s senior research analyst, said in a statement.
“We look at how killing occurs. Who they target, where they operate, the seasonal fluctuations of killings — and the evidence points strongly in one direction.”
Vierhout added: “Violence linked to Fulani militias is the dominant force behind Nigeria’s death toll. The Western preoccupation with Boko Haram is, at best, misleading.”
He warned that Nigeria “is incubating a terror network which the outside world has yet to acknowledge.”
“Christians bore heavier toll”
The report places particular emphasis on the religious identity of victims, an issue that has long been contested in analyses of Nigeria’s violence.
After accounting for victims whose religion could not be immediately determined, ORFA estimates that 28,551 Christians were killed during the study period, compared with 13,224 Muslims.
Relative to population size in the affected states, the report says Christians were killed at 4.4 times the rate of Muslims.
The researchers said they included victims’ religious affiliation because “a variety of contradictory analyses exist concerning the causes of violence in Nigeria.”
“ORFA is not taking sides,” the report said. “The observatory wants to let the data speak for itself without purposefully steering towards one or the other of these narratives.”
According to the study, 42,033 civilians were among those killed during the review period.
About 75% of civilian deaths occurred during raids on farming communities, attacks that frequently involved kidnappings, destruction of homes and forced displacement.
The report also recorded 34,773 civilian abductions.
While Christians and Muslims were abducted in roughly similar numbers, ORFA said its field research found differences in how captives were treated.
“The field research reveals lesser value is assigned to a Christian life,” said Steven Kefas, a senior research analyst at ORFA and author of the accompanying report, Captivity by Creed: The Religious Sorting System Nobody Talks About.
“From the moment of capture, Muslim and Christian hostages enter different realities. It is not about individual captors. It is a system — consistent across multiple states, armed groups, and multiple years of survivor testimony.”
According to the report, Christian captives were more likely to face higher ransom demands, longer detention, execution, forced conversion, forced marriage and sexual violence.
Distinguishing armed groups
Throughout the report, ORFA stresses that its classification refers only to armed groups and not to the wider Fulani ethnic population.
The organisation said the term “Fulani Terror Groups” applies only to armed actors and that “the vast majority” of Fulani people are not involved in violence.
The report also notes that Muslim civilians were among those targeted.
“It is important to understand this shift because FEM has not only targeted Christian civilians but also non-Fulani Muslim civilians,” the researchers wrote.
“It follows that Christian civilians were killed or abducted for being Christians, while Muslim civilians were killed or abducted for being non-Fulani.”
ORFA called on governments, policymakers, civil society organisations and international partners to consider what it describes as the religious dimension of Nigeria’s insecurity when designing responses.
The organisation recommended stronger protection for vulnerable communities, greater attention to freedom of religion or belief, improved local security and an end to impunity for perpetrators.
“We strongly encourage the reader to study the full report,” the researchers said. “It provides vital context and offers a roadmap for addressing the ongoing challenges in Nigeria.”
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