Of the many wars taking place in the world, two of them have captured the media’s attention: the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, there is a third country that has come to the forefront of the news and has been talked about more than usual in recent weeks: Nigeria.
And the person responsible for bringing the situation of Christians in this country to the table happens to be the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP
President of the United States
Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands and thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a country of particular concern. That's a legal definition. When the Christians or any such group is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria, 3100 versus 4476 worldwide. What horrible numbers. Something has to be done.
Trump threatened via social media that if the massacre of Christians continued, he would halt the foreign aid that the United States was providing to the African country.
Nigerian authorities responded to the President’s statements, calling them ‘inaccurate’ and warning against the use of narratives that could destabilize the internal situation.
But to understand the situation, one must ask: what exactly is happening in Nigeria?
According to the Pew Research Center, Christians make up approximately 47% of the total population.
Context is important, and one must go back to 2012 in order to understand the situation. That year, the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, issued an ultimatum ordering Christians to leave the northern part of the country, a place where Islam is the predominant religion.
Although tensions between Muslims and Christians have always existed, from that moment on, attacks on Christians intensified: according to a Nigerian NGO, since the beginning of 2025, 7,000 people have been killed.
This is a situation that also concerns the Vatican. In June, Pope Leo XIV called for prayers after the terrorist attack that took place at St. Joseph Parish in Yewalta
POPE LEO XIV
In the state of Benue, Nigeria, a terrible massacre took place in which around two hundred people were brutally killed, most of them internally displaced persons sheltered by the local Catholic mission. I pray that security, justice, and peace may prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country so deeply affected by various forms of violence.
The attack that Pope Leo referred to was attributed to the ‘Fulani herdsmen’. They are a nomadic group with many extremist Islamic believers.
Jihadism is not the only cause of the attacks against Christians. Many experts indicate that the crimes take place in the country due to disputes over natural resources between different ethnic groups and land conflicts.
AT
