The nation’s leading international religious freedom organization has asked President Donald Trump to call on the nation where mostly Muslim marauders have killed more Christians than anywhere else in the world to begin “protecting vulnerable” Christians.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has issued a statement asking the U.S. State Department to give Nigeria its most concerning designation for religious liberty: a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).

“The abhorrent violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the systematic, ongoing, and egregious attacks throughout Nigeria against Christians and Muslims are indications that government prevention efforts are failing and not protecting vulnerable religious communities,” said USCIRF Chair and former Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler. “U.S. government foreign assistance to Nigeria should efficiently and effectively support efforts to protect religious freedom.”

“Further efforts are needed to reduce violence and preserve freedom of religion or belief for all Nigerians,” added USCIRF Commissioner Mohamed Elsanousi. “The U.S. government should use foreign assistance to address conflict resolution and enhance security sector training so vulnerable religious communities can be better protected.”

Predominantly Christians, as well as some Sufi or dissident Muslims, suffer persecution at the hands of the same force: radical Islamist jihadists.

Muslim extremists murdered 200 Christians in Nigeria over the weekend, often burning them alive. An eyewitness said some victims had been “burned beyond recognition: infants, children, mothers, and fathers just wiped out.”

“The images being reported in the aftermath of this massacre in Yelwata are absolutely devastating. Homes are burned to the ground, now piles of rubble. And lives have been lost, leaving those who survived grieving the loss of children, parents, siblings, and friends. It’s wrong for world leaders to ignore this as just another attack in Nigeria. The innocent Christians targeted in these attacks deserve the protection of their government,” Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.

“Diplomats from the U.S. and other free countries should be holding the Nigerian government accountable and speaking up on behalf of vulnerable Christians being persecuted for their faith,” Del Turco added. “These attacks against Christian villages are completely unacceptable, and the Nigerian government must hear that message loud and clear.”

That continues the ever-escalating cycle of violence plaguing Africa’s most populous nation.

Tens of Thousands of Christians Killed since 2000

Jihadists killed a total of 113 more Christians in March and April — 51 of them on Palm Sunday. Another 3,100 Christians died in 2024, making Nigeria the most dangerous country in the world for Christians, according to the World Watch List 2025 produced by religious persecution watchdog Open Doors. (Thus far in 2025, Nigeria ranks eighth, between the Islamic nations of Pakistan and Eritrea. It is the only nation among the 20 worst nations in the world where Christians constitute a majority.) Additionally:

• Last January, Boko Haram terrorists murdered the pastor of the Church of Christ and 13 others in Yobe State.
• In May 2024, an al-Qaeda affiliate killed eight people and kidnapped 160 children, mostly Christians, whom they eventually released.
• In August 2024, “bandits reportedly killed 70 Christians and kidnapped 20 students in separate attacks in Benue State,” recounted USCIRF in its latest annual report.

“Nigeria’s government has continued to forcibly close camps hosting displaced Christians who fled violence by Boko Haram, despite persistent security concerns in their communities of origin,” noted USCIRF in its most recent annual report. The annual report called on the Trump administration to name Nigeria a CPC, alongside Afghanistan, India, and Vietnam. It also wanted to label Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) as Entities of Particular Concern (EPC).

Nigeria recently had a Christian majority, according to groups on the ground. However, following the CIA, the most recent USCIRF report now lists Nigeria’s population as 53.5% Muslim, with Christians making up 45.9% of the country (35.3% Protestant, 10.6% Roman Catholic). In all, as many as 62,000 Christians may have lost their lives mostly to Islamist jihadist violence since 2000, according to Genocide Watch.

Nigerian lawmakers rejected a law that would have expanded Islamic Sharia law nationwide on October 24, 2024. Nigeria’s 1999 constitution — which describes Nigeria as “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God” and provides for religious liberty — allows a “Sharia Court of Appeal” to impose “Islamic personal law.” Rep. Aliyu Missau said he offered the bill, which would have the word “personal,” because “[t]he constitution did not envisage the dynamism and development that may come into the country” under Islam’s influence over the last two decades.

However, the national government will imprison anyone guilty of making any comment which “persons consider as a public insult on their religion.” Under local anti-blasphemy laws, at least five prisoners still in jail have been sentenced to the death penalty (although courts vacated one sentence).

USCIRF had recommended the U.S. government brand Nigeria a top-level human rights offender every year since 2009, and the State Department finally designated the nation a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) in 2020 — an action reversed by President Joe Biden. USCIRF took the unusual step of releasing a public statement in November 2021 denouncing the administration’s intransigence: The Commission “finds it unexplainable that the U.S. Department of State did not redesignate Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) and treated it as a country with no severe religious freedom violations.”

Biden Supported LGBT Ideology over Christians’ Rights

The CPC designation came about under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), signed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton who, in a signing statement, promised to give the law a narrow interpretation. No later than September 1, the president will review and “designate each country the government of which has engaged in or tolerated violations described in this subparagraph as a country of particular concern for religious freedom.” Once calculated, the president “shall seek to determine the agency or instrumentality thereof and the specific officials thereof that are responsible for the particularly severe violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by that government in order to appropriately target Presidential actions under this section in response.”

The IRFA had passed the Senate with the unanimous support of all 98 members in attendance, including Joe Biden. But as president, other factors drove the Biden-Harris foreign policy.

Instead of prioritizing religious liberty, the Biden-Harris administration prioritized expanding LGBTQIA+ rights in Africa and worldwide. President Biden’s pen signed a presidential memorandum on his 16th day in office instructing all foreign aid programs to “promote respect for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons and combat discrimination” overseas and authorizing the State Department to use “the full range of diplomatic and assistance tools” against nations that resist U.S. cultural imperialism — including financial sanctions and visa restrictions.

“LGBTIQ livelihoods programs funded by USAID between 2011 and 2024 have included” providing “[s]eed capital” and “[e]ntrepreneurship training,” and supporting an LGBTQ-led agribusiness in Nigeria, according to Outright International, a global pressure group founded in 1990 as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and funded by George Soros and the Google Foundation. The Centre for Africa Culture, Rights and Citizens Protection accused the Biden-Harris administration of having a “belligerent attitude” toward traditional African beliefs and called on Nigeria to form a “coalition of the righteous” to oppose the U.S.-funded spread of radical LGBTQ ideology.

While focusing on expanding LGBTQIA+ ideology, the Biden-Harris administration often portrayed anti-Christian violence as driven almost exclusively by agricultural, economic, or ethnic factors. The 2025 USCIRF report continued that trend, noting the nation’s estimated 30,000 Fulani bandits “are often acting based on criminal motives.”

But last weekend’s slaughter in Nigeria caught the notice of the world’s largest pulpit. Pope Leo XIV highlighted the suffering of Christians murdered with “extreme cruelty” before the Sunday Angelus. “I pray that security, justice, and peace will prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country so affected by various forms of violence. And I pray in a special way for the rural Christian communities in Benue State, who have been unceasingly the victims of violence,” said the pontiff.

Family Research Council soon plans to unveil an in-depth brief detailing the reasons why the second Trump administration should label Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern.

“America must use its influence to protect Christians and others being targeted by Islamists,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who served as chair and vice chair of USCIRF during his two terms on the board. “The U.S. government should redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and sanction the Nigerian government.”