A report was published on 15 June titled ‘Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?’
It points out that the violence has claimed the lives of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. It has caused untold human and economic devastation and heightened existing ethno-religious tensions. Despite the scale of the violence, the conflict is much less well known internationally than the ten-year-long Boko Haram insurgency.
Baroness Cox, Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief, argued: ‘While the underlying causes of violence are complex, the asymmetry and escalation of attacks by well-armed Fulani militia upon these predominately Christian communities are stark and must be acknowledged. Such atrocities cannot be attributed just to desertification, climate change or competition for resources, as [the UK] Government have claimed.’
