Jihadist groups create ‘corridor of violence’ targeting Christians in Sahel

Yaoundé, Cameroon — Ryan Brown, the CEO of Open Doors US, paints a grim picture of jihadist violence in the Sahel, saying that jihadist groups have “a regional corridor of violence” targeting religious minorities.

Mr. Brown was speaking in exclusive comments to CWR following a jihadist attack at a baptism ceremony that left 22 Christians dead.

Local media reports that gunmen on motorbikes stormed the Tillabéri region on Monday, September 15, opening fire on attendees of a baptism. They reportedly killed 15 people on the spot before moving on to claim seven more lives.

The attack came barely a week after suspected jihadists killed some 27 Nigerien soldiers in the same locality.

“Once again, the Tillaberi region … has been struck by barbarism, plunging innocent families into mourning and despair,” said Niger’s Maikoul Zodi, a human rights activist, on social media.

“While people celebrated a baptism ceremony, gunmen opened fire, sowing death and terror,” he said.

Tillabéri is a volatile area that borders Burkina Faso and Mali, where jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group operate.

Human Rights Watch reports that at least 127 villagers have been killed since March, their homes reduced to rubble. The rights organization has accused the Nigerien government of failing to act even in the face of warnings about impending attacks.

According to the NGO ACLED, which tracks conflict victims worldwide, an estimated 1,800 people have been killed in attacks in Niger since October 2024, three-quarters of them in Tillaberi.

The brutal attack on a Christian baptism points to the escalation of Christian persecution not only in Niger but across the African Sahel region.

Christians make up 5-6% of the country’s population, and they have been facing growing persecution in the predominantly Muslim country.

Brown told CWR that the security situation across Niger and the broader Sahel region has deteriorated significantly since 2019, with jihadist groups gaining substantial territory and influence.

“In Niger specifically, we’re seeing increased extremist influence from neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, creating a regional corridor of violence that particularly targets religious minorities,” Brown said.

“The fact that a baptism ceremony was specifically targeted shows these aren’t random acts of violence; they’re calculated attempts to eliminate Christian presence from the region,” he told CWR.

Brown emphasizes that such targeted strikes against Christian liturgies and ceremonies reveal a strategic effort to eradicate religious diversity through fear and force.

“This attack is part of a devastating pattern we’ve documented across the Sahel. In Burkina Faso, extremists have destroyed hundreds of churches and forced entire Christian communities to flee. Mali has seen similar church destructions and kidnappings of missionaries. What makes this particularly disturbing is that these groups aren’t just attacking buildings – they’re targeting the most sacred moments of Christian life: baptisms, weddings, Sunday worship. It’s a deliberate strategy to terrorize believers into abandoning their faith or fleeing their ancestral homes,” Brown told CWR.

Some experts believe that the situation of Christians and the broader security problems in the Sahel have not been helped by the back-to-back coups in the Sahel region since 2020, from Guinea to Burkina Faso and Mali.

In 2021, Chad’s army came to power. In July 2023, Niger experienced a coup. In 2022, Ibrahim Traore forcefully took power in Burkina Faso.

All these leaders came to power promising to resolve the problem of terrorism across their territories, but with poorly-equipped militaries and limited capacity for intelligence-gathering, particularly after expelling Western forces, extremism, and its corollary, the persecution of Christians, seem to be ticking up.

Dede Laugesen, the executive director of the coalition Save the Persecuted Christians, told Crux in a 2019 interview that “Christians are increasingly seen as a threat to Muslim-dominated lands and governments.”

“Mass territories of uninhabited, ungoverned regions provide easy cover for Islamic terror group activities. Combined with extreme poverty, joblessness and well-established routes for illegal arms dealing and the illicit slave trade, resource-rich African countries north of the equator provide fertile ground for Islamic State fighters fleeing the Middle East and looking for new territories to dominate,” Laugesen told Crux.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, extremist attacks have skyrocketed in recent years in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, jumping from 180 incidents in 2017 to more than 800 violent attacks in 2019.

In Burkina Faso, for instance, fatalities linked to militant Islamist group violence have almost tripled in the past three years, reaching 17,775 deaths. This compares to 6,630 deaths in the 3 years before Traoré’s coup, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Center further indicates that three of the five deadliest militant attacks in Burkina Faso took place within the last year.

“These include an ambush on a military convoy near Nassougou, killing 158, an attack on the city of Djibo, including its military barracks, killing at least 210, and an attack on the town of Barsalogho, killing at least 310 mostly civilians,” it states.

In Mali, 17,700 people have been killed since 2000, with 81% of those fatalities (14,384 deaths) occurring since 2020, when Mali suffered a coup. Just last year, the country suffered 2,650 fatalities.

And since the overthrow of President Mahmoud Bazoum in 2023, fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence have quadrupled (to 1,655 deaths).

These trends led the US Secretary of State to declare in November that the Sahel will be a “preferred area of focus” outside of the Middle East for the Defeat of ISIS coalition.

Brown, however, contends that if terrorists thought their attacks on Christians would lead to the annihilation of Christianity, then they are mistaken.

“What’s remarkable is how persecution has actually strengthened the church in many ways,” he said. “We’re seeing unprecedented unity across denominations as believers support each other through displacement and loss. In Burkina Faso, Christians from different traditions are praying together and sharing resources in ways we’ve never seen before. Some of our partners report that Muslims have become more open to the gospel after witnessing Christians’ forgiveness and resilience in the face of such violence.”

“The church isn’t just surviving; it’s finding new expressions of faith even in refugee camps and hidden gatherings,” he asserted.

While many critics have pointed to the withdrawal of French troops from the Sahel as one of the factors fueling the spike in terrorist attacks, Brown believes that the most effective and sustainable responses come from those living in the midst of adversity.

“While there are certainly geopolitical factors at play, Open Doors focuses on strengthening local believers and churches to respond to whatever challenges they face,” he stated.

“What we’ve learned over 70 years is that the most sustainable solutions come from within—trained local leaders, resilient church communities, and believers who are equipped to maintain their faith regardless of external political changes.”

He said Open Doors has been partnering with local churches across the Sahel to provide persecution preparedness training so believers know how to respond biblically to violence.

“We’re offering trauma care and healing programs for survivors of attacks, supporting displaced families with emergency aid, and helping churches develop security awareness without living in fear,” he said.

“In Niger specifically, we’ve been working since 2011 through local partners to provide economic empowerment programs, cross-cultural outreach training, and discipleship support for new believers who face the greatest risks.”

Brown says that “the church has survived and thrived through every political transition in this region’s history, and we’re committed to ensuring it continues to do so.”