Radical Islamic militants “brutally murdered” 17 Nigerian Christians in recent days, according to two sources familiar with the attack.
The men and women were killed in the north-central part of Nigeria, Lawrence Zongo, who is a Christian living in Nigeria and reports for Truth Nigeria, told The Daily Signal.
The deadly incident is just the latest in ongoing radical Islamic terrorist attacks on Nigerian Christians.
The attacks have drawn increased attention in recent days after President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would make Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” over the violent persecution of Christians in the African nation. The U.S. Department of State designates a country as one of “Particular Concern” if that nation has tolerated or engaged in “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
Then, on Saturday, Trump indicated he might send U.S. troops into Nigeria.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump said.
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” Trump added.
Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern drew a response from celebrity singer and songwriter Nicki Minaj.
“No group should ever be persecuted for practicing their religion,” Minaj wrote, adding, “[t]hank you to The President & his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let’s remember to lift them up in prayer.”
Christians have faced persecution in Nigeria for more than two decades, but violence against followers of Jesus grew far worse with the rise of Boko Haram in 2009, according to Global Christian Relief. It is estimated that more than 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, about 7,000 in the first half of 2025 alone, according to Concerned Women for America.
In response to Trump’s accusations of persecution in the African nation, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president of Nigeria, said “constitutional guarantees of religious liberty” govern Nigeria.
“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” the Nigerian president said in a statement.
Zongo, who has personally documented the killing of Christians at the hands of Islamic militants, says the “United States and the international community must not be deceived by the Nigerian government’s carefully crafted lies.”
“We in rural communities affected by these genocidal attacks commend President Donald Trump for his courage in speaking the truth and designating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern,” Zongo said.
Now, he is asking the U.S. to send a special rapporteur on human rights and religious freedom to Nigeria “to gather accurate reports, witness live testimonies, and expose the truth from survivors and victims of persecution. Only then will the world understand the magnitude of the crisis that has been allowed to fester for far too long.”
Trump’s support of Christians in Nigeria should not come as a surprise, Max Primorac, a senior research fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
“During his first term, he built up an unprecedented counter-religious persecution infrastructure within the U.S. government to assist all persecuted religious minorities, an infrastructure [President Joe] Biden immediately disassembled,” Primorac said.
The U.S. should immediately take two actions in Nigeria, according to Primorac. First, the U.S. should work worth Nigerian churches to give them the ability to more accurately document the atrocities against Christians “to counter the Left’s anti-Christian climate narrative that dominates our aid and diplomatic circles.”
Second, he recommends that the U.S. aid that is sent to Nigeria for food and other nonfood emergency aid should immediately be redirected “through the Churches in the affected areas.”
