USCIRF Report: Armed Fulani Groups Linked to 1.3 Million Displacements in Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria – A new report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has revealed that approximately 30,000 individuals are affiliated with armed Fulani-linked groups operating across Nigeria, fueling a wave of deadly violence that has displaced at least 1.3 million people.

The document describes a sprawling network of actors ranging from pastoralist vigilantes and bandits to extremist cells. These groups lack a unified command structure, the report notes, but they occasionally coordinate with criminal gangs and extremist organizations to carry out lethal attacks, kidnappings, and raids.

While violence has been most intense in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and parts of the South—often targeting Christian farming communities—the USCIRF stresses that Muslims have also fallen victim to the groups’ operations.

The findings underscore the complex security challenge facing Nigerian authorities, where localized resource conflicts between herders and farmers have increasingly blurred into organized criminality and, in some cases, insurgency-related violence. The displacement figure of 1.3 million adds to a broader humanitarian crisis in Africa’s most populous nation, where multiple conflict zones already strain relief efforts.

USCIRF has repeatedly called for designating certain actors as severe violators of religious freedom, though the new data suggests that the conflict’s drivers are as much economic and criminal as sectarian. Analysts warn that without targeted intervention, the fragmentation and hybridization of these armed groups could further destabilize the region.