British House of Lords member, the Honourable Baroness Cox, has lamented the ordeal of Christians in northern Nigeria after recently concluding a humanitarian fact-finding mission to Nigeria.

A statement issued on Monday in London by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust said: “Today, Baroness Cox has returned from a fact-finding mission to Nigeria, where thousands of Christians have reportedly been killed in escalating attacks led by Fulani militia. She visited the Anguldi Refugee Camp in Jos, Plateau State, which provides shelter to 2,600 IDPs, and spoke to a number of survivors.”

The statement, laced with extracts of the testimonies of some of the victims encountered by Baroness Cox during her visit, said of the scale of suffering:

• The Christian Association of Nigeria estimates that, between January and June this year, around 6,000 people have been killed by Fulani militia.

• The Global Terrorism Index in 2016 and 2017 named Fulani militants as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, with only Boko Haram, ISIS and al-Shabab being accounted deadlier.

• There are almost two million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria. The vast majority have been displaced by the insurgencies of Boko Haram and Fulani militia.

Baroness Cox said in the statement: “The UK Government and mainstream media have characterised these attacks as ‘ethnic riots’ or ‘tit-for-tat tribal clashes between farmers and herders’. While the causes of violence are complex, the asymmetry and escalation of attacks by well-armed Fulani upon predominately Christian communities is stark and must be acknowledged. We must not ignore their suffering any longer.”

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