An estimated 30,000 Fulani militants, predominantly Muslim, are believed to be active in Nigeria, contributing to escalating insecurity and violations of religious freedom, according to a significant new report.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has highlighted that violence perpetrated by Fulani militants resulted in more deaths across all religious communities in Nigeria last year, surpassing the impact of attacks by organized insurgent groups and criminal networks.
The report describes the Fulani, traditionally pastoralists, as targeting Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and increasingly in the southern regions. Their actions reportedly include burning homes and churches, as well as engaging in kidnapping, rape, and murder.
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Funerals were recently held for approximately 27 Christians allegedly killed by Islamist Fulani tribesmen in Bindi village, Plateau State, Nigeria, on July 28, 2025, as reported by Christian Solidarity International.
A former U.S. State Department counterterrorism expert indicated to Fox News Digital that recent collaborative efforts by the U.S. and Nigerian government forces, targeting Islamist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS in Nigeria’s North, may not be effective against the Fulani militants who operate mainly in the predominantly Christian central parts of the country.
Sterling Tilley, former acting director of the Bureau of Counterterrorism, who has worked in Nigeria for the State Department, said that the U.S. “militarily dealing with the farmer-herder conflict is not advisable because it is likely to bring more instability in the country.” Tilley, now director of the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship at Howard University, added, “There are some steps that can be taken to quell the violence, but there must be Nigerian political will to do so.”
Young people protest against the killings following a deadly attack by Fulani militants on Christian-majority villages in Benue state, that left 218 people dead and 6,000 displaced. The protest took place in Benue state, on June 2025. (Open Doors UK)
This week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth commented on the recent strikes ordered by President Donald Trump on Nigeria, saying, “Maybe a year ago, [the president] heard the call of Nigerian Christians who were being targeted and killed by ISIS. And he said, ‘Pete, I want the War Department to focus on ensuring that we do everything we can to protect those Christians.’”
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Christians make up approximately 48% of Nigeria’s population. Fulani militants, the USCIRF report stated, “have often carried out operations during Christian holidays such as Christmas or Easter to further maximize the psychological impact, terrifying those communities from gathering to celebrate or worship. During attacks, assailants sometimes utter slogans with religious connotations, such as “Allahu Akbar“ (Arabic for “God is great”).
But, according to the report, Muslims are being attacked too. “Fulani assailants have not spared Muslims, raiding herders’ cattle and violently attacking non-Fulani Muslim communities,” the report added.
Coffins arrive at Ibrahim Babanginda Square in Makurdi, Benue State, on Jan. 11, 2018, during a funeral service for victims of clashes between Fulani herdsmen and natives of Guma and Logo districts. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP)
“Violence at the hands of militants from the Fulani tribe far outnumbers violence from all other militant groups such as Boko Haram or ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province),” Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK & Ireland, an organization that highlights the persecution of Christians, told Fox News Digital.
While her organization was not part of the report, she said, “My heart has been broken as I have heard stories from women and men who have seen their beloved family members butchered in front of them or carried off into a life of slavery.”
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Fulani muslim men pray in Masallacin Shehu Mosque, Sokoto, Sokoto State, Nigeria, on April 24, 2019. (Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images)
Blyth added: “The situation is complicated, and as the report concludes, it is too simplistic to say all perpetrators are religiously motivated. What is undisputable is that Christians are highly vulnerable and often the victims, paying the price in blood. They desperately need protection and, for hundreds of thousands driven from their homes, the chance to heal and rebuild their lives.”
The USCIRF report also stated, “Criticism of responses to Fulani militant violence from federal and state authorities has often described their responses as unsatisfactory at best and complicit at worst.”
Tilley told Fox News Digital that elections are to be held in Nigeria next year, and “the Fulani do have considerable political influence as a voting block. Thus, the Nigerian government seems reluctant to take actions necessary to quell the violence for fear that they could lose their base of support in the North and Middle Belt.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Nigerian government for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
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