Kochi: The global conscience was recently jolted by the devastating reports emerging from Benue State, Nigeria, where a brutal attack in the early hours of Saturday claimed the lives of nearly 200 people. In a poignant response, Pope Leo XIV, during his Sunday prayers, specifically acknowledged this tragic incident, extending his intercessions to the suffering populations of Nigeria, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East, all grappling with severe persecution. The Pontiff's appeal resonated as a clarion call for the international community to intensify efforts aimed at ensuring security, delivering justice to the beleaguered Christian communities in Nigerian villages facing relentless assaults, and ultimately restoring a semblance of peace.
The Saturday massacre in Benue State paints a horrifying picture: victims, predominantly refugees sheltered within a Catholic rehabilitation center, were reportedly locked in by terrorists before being consumed by flames. Such acts, which numb the human conscience, have regrettably become a recurring nightmare across various parts of Nigeria for years. Alarming statistics underscore the scale of this relentless violence; merely last month, Nigeria witnessed 204 separate violent incidents. According to the "Human Angle" report, a dedicated monitor of terrorist violence in Nigeria, May 2025 alone saw 635 fatalities and 182 abductions by terrorists.
The cumulative death toll from reported violent incidents this year has already surged to approximately 3,000. Furthermore, a damning report by 'The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa' released last August exposed that between 2020 and 2023, a staggering 16,769 Christians were killed in Nigeria, with 11,185 abducted during the same period. This escalating sequence of brutal massacres is unequivocally branded as a genocide, potentially the worst the world has ever witnessed.
The wave of terrorist attacks is not confined to Nigeria; it is sweeping across other African nations, including Burkina Faso, Congo, and Somalia. Burkina Faso, for instance, suffered an attack by Al-Qaeda terrorists on March 28, resulting in over 60 deaths. In Congo, a nation with a Christian population exceeding 94.5 percent, terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State brutally massacred 70 Christians on February 12. Somalia endured a car bomb attack by the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization in March, claiming 21 lives. These incidents collectively suggest a disturbing trend: the entire African continent is progressively transforming into a hotbed of unrest, with Islamic terrorist activities, previously concentrated, now emerging in countries like Burkina Faso and Congo, signifying a broadening geographical reach of extremist ideologies.
These atrocities serve as grim proof that radical Islamic terrorist organizations such as Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS are strategically targeting an increasing number of African countries, meticulously planning more extensive and devastating attacks. What is particularly chilling is that these perpetrators demonstrate no hesitation in slaughtering not only Christians but also moderate Muslim believers who refuse to endorse their extremist positions. 'The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa' further substantiates this, revealing that while 16,769 Christians were killed from 2020-2023, a significant 6,235 ordinary Muslim believers also perished at the hands of these Islamic terrorists.
Approximately eight thousand Muslims were among those kidnapped during this period. Such incidents unequivocally illustrate that these Islamic terrorist organizations harbor ambitions extending far beyond mere religious hatred; they aim for the complete collapse of national structures and the systematic eradication of moderate Muslim voices, plunging entire societies into chaos.
Despite tens of thousands being brutally massacred and millions displaced and facing death, the chilling truth remains: these incidents largely fail to garner the necessary global attention. The devastating Nigerian tragedy on Saturday, where approximately two hundred people, including innocent children, were incinerated in a terrorist attack, received sparse coverage from only a handful of Malayalam media outlets. The overwhelming majority, however, appear to be deliberately suppressing or downplaying such grave occurrences. This dangerous silence maintained by global media outlets and national leaderships, even as religiously motivated extremist violence sharply escalates worldwide, effectively nourishes Islamic terrorism.
The fact that these massacres receive less than a fraction of the media scrutiny compared to terrorist attacks that encounter setbacks is not merely an act of abject neglect; it represents a profound crime against humanity as a whole. The KCBC Vigilance Commission's note implicitly challenges the selective outrage, particularly highlighting the stark contrast with the disproportionate media and political propaganda witnessed in Kerala following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, while the plight of Christians and moderate Muslims elsewhere is consistently overlooked and the atrocities perpetrated by various Islamic terrorist organizations are systematically obscured.