Workers at an informal displaced persons camp that has sprung up in an abandoned market in Benue state, Nigeria, denounced this week the discovery of trash disposals full of fetuses as a result of dangerous and unsanitary abortions conducted on women and girls at the camp.
The Nigerian newspaper Vanguard, citing the local outlet Arewa Voice, attributed the “crisis of unwanted pregnancies and abortions” at the site of what formerly was the Makurdi Ultra Modern International Market – now a refugee camp for about 5,000 people – to an eruption of sexual activity by displaced people “who just want to feel alive again.” The report did not mention rape, but human rights organizations have extensively documented the prevalence of rape and other sexual assault, including by government officials, among internally displaced and refugee people.
Benue is located in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, the region where the Muslim-majority north and the Christian-majority south meet. For over a decade, the Middle Belt has been the site of a systematic campaign of genocide against the Christians by organized jihadist terrorists, often referred to as Fulani “herdsmen” or “bandits” or “unknown gunmen.” The jihadists raid Christian villages, setting homes ablaze, massacring or abducting residents, and stealing the land. The Nigerian government has taken little to no action in response to the raids; locals have testified to being threatened by government officials into silence when falling victim to jihadist attacks.
President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for religious freedom last week in response to the genocide, then ordered the Pentagon to draft plans for potentially taking kinetic action against the jihadist terrorists in defense of Christians. The government of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu responded by denying the genocide entirely and accusing Trump of threatening Nigeria. Nigeria’s military leadership held meetings this week to discuss the alleged “threat” of the United States while continuing to ignore years of a metastasizing Islamist insurgency within its borders.
The displaced people at the Makurdi Ultra Modern International Market that Vanguard showcased were the victims of “armed herdsmen” attacking and seizing their homes. According to the newspaper, this spontaneous refugee camp surfaced after the “herdsmen” jihadists attacked the thousands of people flocking there on June 13.
“The abandoned commercial space has transformed into a temporary refuge for the people uprooted by conflict,” Vanguard reported. “Reports of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions among women and girls in the camp have raised serious health and moral concerns.”
Given the high population of Christians in Benue and the typical targets of the “herdsmen,” most of the refugees in the abandoned market are likely to be Christians. Vanguard described a bleak scenario where those living in the abandoned market struggle to meet daily food, shelter, and other needs. Quoting the outlet Arewa Voice, Vanguard reported that a “medical volunteer” described the horror of humanitarian aid workers trying to clear up the mounting garbage in the camp and finding a pile of killed unborn babies.
“When they were clearing the refuse, they found foetuses dumped there. It was a shocking sight. They called me, but what could I do?” the medical volunteer said. “We have sexually active men and women in the camp and something has to be done urgently to help them know the health implication of unprotected sex.”
The manager of the camp, Robert Nyom, reportedly confirmed the discovery of the slain babies and claimed that “steps were being taken to address the situation.” Vanguard did not list any of those steps.
The workers reportedly have identified a “young man” who has been tasked with the abortions, using unspecified “crude methods” to kill unwanted babies. “The Red Cross personnel who expressed concern over the issue disclosed that the abortions were mostly carried out by quacks which would later require professional attention,” the newspaper added.
The report did not state that any of the women and girls enduring abortions by the alleged “quacks” have died at press time, but did acknowledge “complications” that medical personnel at the camp do not have the resources to properly address.
The situation described in Makurdi, the capital city of Benue, by the Vanguard report on Friday is consistent with years of concerns raised by the Christian community of the state, much of it made up of smaller tribes reportedly persecuted by the ethnic Fulani. In 2023, Father Remigius Ihyula, a university chaplain and emergency relief coordinator for the Diocese of Makurdi, told Breitbart News that, by his estimate, upwards of 90 percent of Benue’s population was Christian, making it a target-rich environment for Fulani jihadists.
The Christians, he lamented, “are living in degrading human conditions. They can’t go back to their homes and no one has been arrested or prosecuted for bringing this kind of hardship.”
“There is an orchestrated design to push especially Christian populations away from these places so that they can occupy those territories,” he denounced, adding that the government was actively intimidating locals at the time to silence them when asked who was persecuting them.
“In fact, people were even warned not to say they are Fulani herdsmen who have been causing these atrocities such that when you open the general media they are talking about bandits – bandits or they say ‘unknown gunmen’ or things like that,” Father Ihyula told Breitbart News, “so you read about bandits. It’s rubbish: they are Fulani men going about with cattle and with guns and killing people and the government won’t do anything about it.”
In March, Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, the head of the Diocese of Makurdi, testified before Congress that terrorist jihadis were destroying his congregation.
“A long-term Islamic agenda to homogenize the population has been implemented, over several presidencies, through a strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity of half the population,” he told Congress.
“This strategy includes both violent and non-violent actions, such as the exclusion of Christians from positions of power, the abduction of church members, the raping of women,” he listed, “the killing and expulsion of Christians, the destruction of churches and farmlands of Christian farmers, followed by the occupation of such lands by Fulani herders.”
Anagbe used his time before Congress to call for America to return Nigeria to the CPC list, which Trump had placed it on in 2020 but former President Joe Biden removed it in 2021.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” Trump announced a week ago. “Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN.’”
A day later, Trump warned the Nigerian government to act in defense of Christians or the United States may consider going “into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Tinubu, the Muslim President of Nigeria, entirely denied the evidence of widespread genocidal Islamist activity, claiming instead that Nigeria struggled with generalized “instability” that affected all its citizens equally.
“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Tinubu claimed, “nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians.”
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