NIGERIA Appeal

Over 17,500 churches attacked… 2,000 Christian schools destroyed… at least 3 million internally displaced people across Nigeria’s Middle Belt in the past 12 years. These are the findings of the ACN ‘Religious Freedom in the World’ report 2023.

These figures highlight the difficult truth that our Christian brothers and sisters in Nigeria are in desperate need of your support as they continue to experience alarming levels of suffering and persecution and why today Nigeria is known as the most dangerous country to be a Christian in the world.

The report also highlights that such suffering and persecution happens around major feast days during times of celebration, and worship including Christmas and Easter. Last Christmas, 47 Christians were killed and 6,800 displaced following grievous attacks at the hands of extremists.

The Lenten Season, we ask that you pray for God to protect them from harm – and to support them by helping to provide access to aid, support systems, education and enable them to continue to express and live out their faith. Your support can change the lives of many Christians in Nigeria for the better as it is only with your support and love that ACN is able to help them. May God bless you.

HELP THE SUFFERING CHURCH IN NIGERIA >>

THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT BEING A CHRISTIAN IN NIGERIA

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Blessing Ukertor in hospital with wounds to her hands and leg after her home in Yelwata was attacked. Both her parents were killed.

• Nigeria has become known as the most dangerous country to be a Christian. In any given year, the numbers of Christians killed by extremist groups is rarely less than 4,000 – often more than in the rest of the world combined
• Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt face daily persecution linked to the introduction of Shari’a law in nearby Muslim-majority states, resulting in significant violence and heightened tensions within the region.
• Boko Haram, originally The People of the Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad, began its violent campaign against Christians in 2009, leading to widespread suffering and displacement. After aligning with ISIS in 2015 and subsequently splitting into factions, both Boko Haram and ISWAP continue their aim to eradicate Christianity from the northern states.

OUR PROJECTS IN NIGERIA

Your support will help numerous projects across Nigeria, offering help to the suffering faithful. ACN’s projects across Nigeria include: Education for women, including single mothers and grandmothers in in Plateau State, so that they can provide a better life for their families; Emergency aid for families that have been forcibly displaced in Borno State; the work of charitable Sisters helping local communities in Anambra State, and many more. You can learn more about ACN projects in Nigeria by downloading the report HERE

SUPPORT OUR PROJECTS IN NIGERIA >>

ACN BREAK THE SILENCE PODCAST

“I was completely at the mercy of the bandits who had kidnapped me. I had nothing but God….”
Fr Stephen Ojaphah, MSP
Nigerian priest and abduction survivor

Fr Stephen Ojapah MSP describes the horrors he endured over 33 days of jihadist captivity in Nigeria and recounts his journey to working with trauma survivors.

HELP THE FAITHFUL IN NIGERIA

Aid to the Church in Need is working with Church partners across Nigeria to offer pastoral help for victims of atrocities and internally displaced people, trauma counselling, teaching catechists, education to children and more.