A United States commission tracking religious freedom violations has sounded a new alarm about Nigeria's deteriorating security crisis.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released findings in May 2026 showing roughly 30,000 armed Fulani militants operate across Nigeria in scattered groups.
Their report carries a stark title: "Nonstate Violators of Religious Freedom in Nigeria: Fulani Militants." It describes these groups as among the nation's deadliest non-state violence actors.
Attacks from Fulani-linked armed men have devastated Nigeria's Middle Belt and southern communities. Thousands have been killed and residents forcibly displaced from their homes.
Last year, violence from Fulani militants killed more people than organised insurgent groups or criminal gangs, according to the commission's research.
Christian communities bore the brunt of these assaults. But Muslim settlements have also endured raids, murders and abductions during the same period.
What makes the threat harder to combat is its fragmented nature. No single command structure unites these militant groups across the country.
Yet loose coordination does occur between some units. Armed Fulani groups have worked with common bandit gangs and designated terrorist organisations, the report notes.
"These actors operate in a variety of contexts and with a multiplicity of likely aims," USCIRF explained in its findings.
Militants typically strike at night against remote rural villages with few defences. Motorcycles, automatic weapons and machetes serve as their tools of terror.
According to the commission, they deliberately use extreme violence to force communities off ancestral lands. Machete attacks on sleeping villagers have become a recurring tactic.
Displacement figures paint a grim picture across affected regions. At least 1.3 million people have fled their homes in the Middle Belt alone.
Many survivors now crowd into camps with minimal sanitation and no real security protection. Humanitarian aid remains scarce in these settlements.
The report documents specific massacres from 2025 and early 2026. Benue State and Plateau State experienced some of the deadliest incidents.
In June 2025, militants killed roughly 200 people sheltering at a Catholic mission in Benue. Most were internally displaced persons already fleeing prior violence.
The Yelwata massacre claimed over 200 Christian lives. A significant majority were women and children, according to USCIRF's account.
That single attack displaced more than 3,000 survivors who fled the area. Many remain unaccounted for in the chaos that followed.
Militants have strategically timed operations to coincide with major Christian holidays. Christmas and Easter celebrations now carry heightened security fears in target areas.
USCIRF says this scheduling maximises psychological damage to communities already living under threat. Holiday gatherings have become danger periods rather than sacred occasions.
In February 2026, suspected Fulani militants killed at least 32 people in a fresh attack. The violence shows no signs of slowing down.
