Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the appeal of bishops in Nigeria’s Kaduna Ecclesiastical Province to Governor Nasir El-Rufai to urgently convene a stakeholders’ meeting to halt the killings and escalating violence in the Kajuru Local Government Area and elsewhere in the Kaduna State; and whether they support such an appeal.

The violence in Kajuru Local Government Area has escalated through a cycle of reprisal attacks, causing suffering to all sides. We welcome a number of local initiatives aimed at bringing together community and traditional leaders to address the violence. We urge restraint from further violence. We also urge communities to cooperate with the Kaduna state government and security agencies in their efforts to protect residents and, together, search for longer-term peaceful solutions to the conflict.