Frank Wolf, a former U.S. lawmaker and genocide expert, says Nigeria might become another Rwanda and Dafur (Sudan) if its authorities fail to check the persecution of Christians in the country.
Christian Post reports that Wolf, who represented Virginia in the Congress, spoke when he joined Genocide Watch’s Greg Stanton, Nigerian bishops and other religious freedom advocates on a Zoom call with reporters.
It was hosted by the advocacy group in Defence of Christians.
The Rwanda genocide, carried out by the majority Hutu ethnic group, took place between April 7 and July 15, 1994 and led to the death of over 800,000 Tutsis, Twas and moderate Hutus.
The Dafur conflict began in 2003 when rebels launched an insurrection to protest Sudanese government’s disregard for the western region and its non-Arab population. Nearly two million people were killed and about four million displaced during the conflict.
“When the world and the U.S. ignored genocide in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of people died. History, I believe, is repeating itself,” Wolf said.
“Almost daily reports show increasing violence and death in Nigeria. An implosion of Nigeria will destabilise the surrounding countries and send millions of refugees into Europe and beyond.”
Thousands have been killed while millions displaced since 2015 following attacks by predominantly Muslim Fulani militias against predominantly Christian farming communities in the Middle Belt of Nigeria as well as Islamic extremist attacks carried out by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in northeast Nigeria.
An organisation, Genocide Watch, has estimated that about 27,000 people have been killed by extremists or Fulani jihadists in the last decade.
It said the violence carried out by Fulani militias and Islamic terrorists in Nigeria combine to make “the deadliest genocidal massacres committed by any terrorists since 2010.”
“Boko Haram has committed genocide in Nigeria, has killed over 27,000 Nigerians, more than ISIS killed in Iraq and Syria combined,” Wolf stressed during his opening remarks. “The Fulani militants are committing genocidal massacres against Nigerian Christians.”
In January, Open Door USA, in a report, ranked Nigeria 12th among 50 nations of the world where Christians are most persecuted.