by Dan Hart, Washington Stand
In response to the ongoing widespread massacre of Christians being carried out by numerous Islamist militia groups in Nigeria, a coalition of 35 religious freedom advocates and Christian leaders sent a letter to President Donald Trump Wednesday urging him to redesignate the West African nation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
Nigeria, the most populous nation on the African continent, has been home to the targeting and murdering of Christians on a scale not seen anywhere else in the world. The Nigerian organization Intersociety estimates that since 2009, 52,000 Christians have been murdered and more than 20,000 churches have been attacked and burned by various Islamist extremist groups, including Fulani herders, Boko Haram, and other Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked terror groups.
The letter, led by Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and joined by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, former Congressman Frank Wolf, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, and dozens of other leaders observed that the Nigerian government “is directly violating religious freedom by enforcing Islamic blasphemy laws that carry the death penalty and harsh prison sentences against citizens of various religions. It also demonstrably tolerates relentless aggression uniquely against Christian farming families by militant Fulani Muslim herders, who appear intent on forcibly Islamizing the Middle Belt.”
The letter goes on to note that Fulani herders are the “biggest threat facing Nigeria’s Christians. … With cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ and wielding AK-47s, they invade peaceful Christian farming areas in Nigeria’s central region, massacring families, burning homes and harvests, and driving millions of Christians from their ancestral lands.” Last month, it was reported that the group is also kidnapping dozens of Christians and holding them in at least 11 hostage camps “in the vast forest south of Kaduna.” If the hostages’ families cannot provide a ransom payment, the victims are executed.