Ngoshe massacre, urges urgent international intervention to save victims

Members of the “End The Genocide of Nigerian Christians Coalition”, (USCIRF), a coalition of human rights, faith-based, and advocacy organizations, yesterday, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, met with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to affirm its recommendation of Nigeria for redesignation as a “Country of Particular Concern” for the year 2026.

For more than 15 years, USCIRF has recommended Nigeria’s designation and its report findings reflect the grim reality these organizations have documented consistently and firsthand. However, events that occurred even as last Thursday’s 2026 report was released have validated the gravity of the situation.

Responding to USCIRF’s new report, the advocacy coalition said:

1. Mass Abductions: A major focus of the 2026 report is the surge in kidnappings and targeted killings

The recent Ngoshe massacre, where over 300 people were reported killed and abducted last week in Borno State is a stark reminder that this crisis is escalating in Nigeria and must be robustly addressed by the Nigerian government and its partners.

2. Impact of Budget Cuts: While USCIRF explicitly "laments" the dramatic impact of U.S. budget cuts on groups like USAID, which caused the elimination of early-warning systems in the Middle Belt and interfaith dialogue programs, these projects have had doubtful effect in a crisis that has worsened not improved. Indeed, a contractor of one these programs admitted last year that there is Christian genocide. We support restoration of funding only for new, practical and demonstrably helpful projects to devastated communities and victims and not pointless talkshops.

3. USCIRF says CPC countries should be banned from hiring lobbyists citing specifically

Nigeria’s $9 million contract. We fully endorse this recommendation. Sanctioned governments should spend resources on improving reality for their suffering citizens and not changing or chasing narratives.

4. USCIRF recommended that US provide refugee assistance to persecution victims.

We request urgent measures to protect the vulnerable communities of Northern Nigeria.

The refugee situation is dire. 120,000 refugees from Gwoza have been displaced to Northern

Cameroon and UNHCR funding cuts have led to desperate forced/incentivised returns to unsafe communities like Ngoshe in Gwoza, leading to avoidable deaths. The US, Italian and French Governments screened refugees for resettlement awaiting airlift, but this was reportedly halted.

According to emerging reports from local sources, the victims included people who recently returned to their ancestral homes after spending a decade in refugee camps in neighboring Cameroon.

Eyewitness report survivors fleeing once again into surrounding mountains. Many families are now besieged without shelter, food, or medical assistance. (See Special Report by Coalition Member Arise Africa.)

Call for Immediate International Action

We call on the international community and relevant authorities to take urgent action. Specifically, we urge:

1. UNHCR to halt the return of refugees to Nigeria but together with IOM and others coordinate international efforts to rescue and evacuate victims from the affected communities.

2. The Federal Government of Nigeria, the Borno State Government, and international humanitarian agencies—including the UNHCR, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other relief organizations—must mobilize urgently to provide shelter, food, medical care, and protection for displaced survivors including those stranded on the mountains yet again

3. We call for expanded international support for Nigeria’s efforts to combat terrorism, including enhanced intelligence sharing, surveillance capabilities, and strategic security operations to secure and rescue those stranded on the mountains.

4. We call for rapid resettlement of the refugees in Cameroun.”

In addition, coalition members at the meeting pledged to provide USCIRF with verified casualties data collated by them as well as ineffective U.S.-funded projects that should be revamped.

Signatories of the statement include coalition member organizations such as Save the Persecuted Christians U.S.A.; U.S.-Nigeria Law Group, Washington; and Christian Association of Nigerian Americans – CANAN, USA – amongst others.

•International human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe at the U.S. Congress with a USCIRF Commissioner at the report release

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