EXCLUSIVE TO FOX NEWS: According to several sources who spoke with Fox News Digital, the wave of kidnappings targeting Christians in north-central Nigeria is a calculated move by predominantly Muslim Fulani militants. This tactic aims to financially cripple and ultimately dismantle Christian communities.

“The Fulani militants use kidnapping for ransom as a strategic tool,” explained Steven Kerfas, the lead researcher at the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA), in an interview with Fox News Digital. “Their goal is to fund their terrorist activities and financially devastate the Christian population.”

Kerfas highlighted that in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, these large-scale abductions are intentional. “There are incidents where groups of 100 Christians are taken into the forests and held captive for extended periods. They are coerced into paying ransoms that they can’t afford, forcing them to sell off everything, including their farmland,” he noted.

Christian communities participate in a march for prayer and penance for peace and security in Nigeria, held in Abuja on March 1, 2020. (Photo by Kola Sulaimon/AFP via Getty Images)

He further elaborated, “These communities rely on subsistence farming for their survival. When they are compelled to sell their farmland to pay ransoms, they are left with nothing once released. So, what future do they return to? Essentially, they have nothing left.”

Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK, a global Christian charity supporting Christians persecuted for their faith, told Fox News Digital, “The kidnapping for ransom epidemic in north-central Nigeria doesn’t just affect Christians, but it’s clear that they are disproportionately singled out.”

In Nigeria, Open Doors states that 4,407 Christians were abducted in the north-central region between 2020 and 2025. When adjusted for relative population size, a Christian was 2.4 times more likely than a Muslim to be abducted, the organization claims.

Blyth said, “Tactics by kidnappers include raids on churches and schools… priests and pastors are singled out because they represent high-value targets. Families and friends are often forced to sell land, livestock and property to meet the kidnappers’ demands, and it can bankrupt families for generations.”.

Blythe warned of the “horrific dilemma” Christians face: “Pay ransoms in the hope of saving lives, (knowing) that payment allows the attacks to continue, or refuse and risk their loved ones being slaughtered – sometimes families and communities pay the ransom, but it doesn’t lead to the kidnapped person being released alive.”

Newspapers at a stand in Ojuelegba, Lagos, Nigeria, Nov. 2, 2025. (Sodiq Adelakun/Reuters)

International Christian Concern reported that a pastor who had been kidnapped in August of last year in north-central Nigeria, the Rev. James Audu Issa, was held for several weeks, and then killed – even though a ransom had been paid.

“In the (Nigerian) Middle Belt, they kidnap Christians, they kidnap the clergy, they abduct women. They hardly kidnap any Muslims,” Nigerian lawyer Jabez Musa told Fox News Digital. Musa is a pseudonym, used to protect the lawyer’s identity.

He said, “The reason for these ransom demands is to economically weaken Christians. That is the way Christians look at it.”

The lawyer added that, in April this past year one church, the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), said they had to pay 300 million naira ($205,000) in ransom to kidnappers, for about 50 of their members who were kidnapped in Kaduna State and Plateau State. Payments such as these place an unbearable financial strain on the church and affected families.”

Funerals for some 27 Christians who were reportedly killed by Islamist Fulani tribesmen in the village of Bindi Ta-hoss, Nigeria, on July, 28, 2025 (Courtesy: Christian Solidarity International)

Kerfas added, “The Fulani militants are on a jihad, and, of course, they need to fund that jihad. So the Christians being abducted have to cough out huge sums as ransoms.”

Christian communities are in the majority in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. But the claimed goal of the Fulani militants of wiping out the Christian communities through kidnapping makes their future desperate and bleak.

Kerfas warned, “If you don’t pay ransom, you get killed. And sometimes, even after paying the ransom, you still get killed.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Nigerian government but did not receive a response.