Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the (a) scale and (b) nature of the persecution and murder of Christians in Nigeria.

Terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa have sought to undermine the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) by attacking those who do not subscribe to their extremist views, including both Christians and Muslims. These incidents are distinct from the ongoing intercommunal violence across Nigeria. The root causes of this violence are complex, and whilst religious identity can play a role, so can loss of economic opportunity, competition over land and natural resources, disruption to traditional ways of life created by environmental degradation, and historical grievances. The precise scale of people killed in attacks in Nigeria recently remains uncertain, particularly as not all attacks are reported to local authorities.