Nigeria, often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", is Africa's most populous country and the seventh most populous in the world.
It is one of the world's largest oil producers and considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank.
But many of its inhabitants live with a permanent threat of violent death.
There has been Islamic extremist violence against Christians in northern Nigeria from the 1980s and especially since the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Since 2015 violence has killed more than 6,000 Christians and forced almost two million people to flee their homes.
It is worth repeating that number - that is more than 6,000 Christians killed in in the last five years.
Thousands of others have been maimed, burned or kidnapped, by Boko Haram jihadists or Fulani militants.
There is a common pattern to the violence.
Militants, armed with guns and machetes, storm into a predominantly Christian village and begin indiscriminately slaughtering men, women and children.
For example, 22 July 2020 militants with knives and machetes broke into homes of a mainly-Christian village Kizachi in southern Kaduna State murdering
Kefas Monday, 17
Lydia Monday, 14
Jummai, 9
Giwa Thomas, 14
Living Yohanna, 27
A Christian village leader said that attacks are now so frequent that they had stopped reporting them. “...We seem to always be reporting deaths and attacks and people are weary of our reports.”
The carnage has gone largely unchallenged by the Nigerian government, security forces have failed to stop the violence and the international media are silent. A church leader lamented, “It is as if the lives of Christians no longer matter in the areas under attacks.”
The faith of persecuted Nigerian Christians is strong. But we must come to their aid.
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