Nigerian victims of anti-Christian violence are desperate for the world to notice their plight, said an international religious persecution expert in a January 28 talk at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Stephen Rasche, an American lawyer who helps persecuted Christians in Nigeria and Iraq, spoke on “Nigeria on the Brink: The Current Crisis of Anti-Christian Violence in Nigeria and the International Response.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and editor-at-large of National Review Magazine, moderated the event.

Rasche said northern and central Nigeria have seen increased lawlessness and violence, with raids and kidnappings occurring weekly by the Boko Haram terrorist organization and other Muslim ethnic groups.

“These conflicts have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people with devastating effects on the community,” he said.

Rasche estimated that since 2009, up to 40,000 people in northern Nigeria have been killed in the Boko Haram conflict alone. Nationwide, it’s estimated that 1.8 million Nigerians, primarily women and children, have been displaced and over 7 million people urgently need humanitarian assistance, Rasche said.

Rasche shared video clips filmed at great risk by villagers in northern Nigeria, telling of Islamic herdsmen who come under the pretext of land disputes and wipe out whole villages of Christian farmers.

The video also featured messages from Nigerian Bishop Stephen Mamza of the Yola diocese, and Bishop Matthew Kukah of the Sokoto diocese. Both prelates directly addressed Franciscan University, asking it to help expose the situation in Nigeria.

Bishop Mamza has lost several family members from Boko Haram attacks.

“We need to know that the world is watching and also understanding what is happening to us,” Bishop Mamza said. “Without you telling the truth, we have no hope.”

Nigerians became discouraged recently by the decision of the Biden administration to remove Nigeria from the U.S. Department of State’s watch list of Countries of Particular Concern.

“The feeling is absolutely amongst Christians there that they are being abandoned and not just by the U.S. but by the greater global community,” Rasche said.

Bishop Kukah, a leading Christian voice in Nigeria, referred to Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti in his video and called upon Catholic Christians to pay attention to what is happening in other areas of the world, since within the Church, all are brothers and sisters.

Lopez said, “Here we have a bishop who is in the midst of an existential crisis for his people, this brutal violence, and yet he’s thinking with the Church, he’s reading this document that most Americans probably haven’t read, and he’s seeing how it applies to the situation. … And he’s taking the time to teach us.”

Rasche said the solution to these problems come “from within ourselves, from within our faith, from within our relations, in our brotherhood, in our sisterhood. But it’s up to us to begin acting and not waiting for government” to respond.

Rasche quit his law practice in 2014 to work full-time in Iraq with Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, CSsR, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, to help Christian refugees fleeing ISIS. He details his experiences and humanitarian aid efforts in his book The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East. Rasche is currently the vice chancellor of the Catholic University of Erbil, Iraq.

The talk was sponsored by the Franciscan University of Steubenville School of Theology and Philosophy as part of the Friday Academic Lecture Series. It can be viewed on demand at https://bit.ly/3FhPBao.