Twice as many Christians were killed in Nigeria as Muslims between 2020 and 2025, according to a new report.
The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) found that 28,551 Christians were killed during that period, compared with 13,224 Muslims. The report said that, when Christian deaths are examined relative to state populations, Christians were killed at 4.4 times the rate of Muslims in affected states.
The research also sheds new light on mass kidnappings. It revealed that 34,773 civilians were abducted over the six-year period, with the vast majority seized during armed raids on their homes. Christian abductions totalled 15,932, compared with 15,272 Muslims.
Yet field research carried out by ORFA, drawing on survivor testimony from multiple abduction events, reveals deeper religious dynamics driving kidnappings.
Christian hostages face higher ransoms, longer negotiation periods, worse violence and a greater risk of execution, even after their families have paid in full. Christian women and girls also face extreme sexual violence, forced conversion and forced marriage.
The study found that 79,323 people were killed in Nigeria between 2020 and 2025, an average of seven attacks a day. More than 42,000 of those killed were civilians.
Four times as many killings were carried out by militias categorised as 'Fulani Terror Groups', which killed 44% of all civilians. Boko Haram carried out 8%, with 4% of attacks by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The report said this shows the West's "preoccupation with Boko Haram is, at best, misleading".
OFRA said that 75% of civilians were killed in community attacks, such as raids on farming settlements involving abduction, rape and property destruction. Meanwhile, 34,773 civilians were abducted, with 'Fulani Terror Groups' and 'Unidentified Terror Groups' carrying out 43% and 49% of abductions respectively.
Steven Kefas, senior research analyst and author of Captivity by Creed: The Religious Sorting System Nobody Talks About, said: "The field research reveals a lesser value is assigned to a Christian life.
"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 years of survivor testimony."
Frans Vierhout, senior research analyst at ORFA, said: "The data makes this very difficult to ignore. We look at how killings occur, who is targeted, where attacks take place and the seasonal fluctuations in violence, and the evidence points strongly in one direction.
"Violence linked to Fulani militias is the dominant force behind Nigeria's death toll...Nigeria is incubating a terror network which the outside world has yet to acknowledge."
OFRA has urged governments and international bodies to engage closely with the data because "without a full accounting of the religious dimensions of violence in Nigeria, attempts to find solutions remain incomplete".
The study is careful to distinguish between armed Fulani terror groups and the Fulani people as a whole, the vast majority of whom are not involved in violence.