The official death toll has fluctuated, with initial reports suggesting that more than 50 people were killed, including children, and others injured. The current tally is at least 40 deaths. While the massacre was unusual in size, the incident was “not a one-off, it’s not something new,” Rasche stressed, pointing out that killings of Christians happen “almost daily.”
The government’s interior minister has blamed the insurgent group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, for the attack.
In Nigeria as a whole, at least 60,000 Christians have been killed in the past two decades — at least 4,650 in 2021 and nearly 900 in the first three months of 2022 alone. Rasche said he recently observed newly ordained priests in Nigeria being told that they need to accept that they could be victims of violence ministering in Nigeria.
Despite this, since 2021 the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for as-yet-undisclosed reasons, no longer lists Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) on a watchlist of countries with the most egregious violations of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has been recommending the designation of Nigeria as a CPC since 2009. Rasche said many Christian leaders effectively have given up on the U.S. government, saying that the Biden administration is not viewed as “serious” about stopping the persecution.
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