President Donald Trump has designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over severe religious freedom violations and has pledged to seek a role in efforts to end Sudan’s civil war. The moves, highlighted by the Trump administration and advocacy group Open Doors, are aimed at addressing violence driven by Islamist extremist groups and wider ethnic conflict in both nations.
Last month, President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) for religious freedom violations, saying that "Christianity is facing an existential threat," according to an interview with The Daily Wire. The CPC designation means the United States will seek to address Nigeria’s religious freedom abuses and opens the door to potential economic penalties, the outlet reported.
Trump underscored the scale of the violence, stating, "When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!"
Advocacy group Open Doors and on‑the‑ground accounts cited by The Daily Wire say that in Nigeria more than 7,000 Christians have reportedly been killed this year because of their faith, including 250 people in a massacre in Yelwata village in June. Research on global Christian persecution suggests that Nigeria accounts for around 80% of Christian deaths worldwide linked to persecution, according to Open Doors. In its 2025 World Watch List released in January, Open Doors ranked Nigeria seventh among countries where Christians face the most persecution.
Islamist militant groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are blamed for much of the anti‑Christian violence, particularly in northern Nigeria. But analysts and Open Doors stress that the conflict is more complex: non‑Arab or non‑aligned Muslims have also been killed for political, ethnic and religious reasons. "There are so many different contributing factors that are at play here. It’s a complicated situation," Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors U.S., told The Daily Wire, adding that the nuance does not negate the reality of Christian persecution.
Nigeria’s government has rejected accusations that Christians are being systematically targeted, stating, "There is no Christian genocide in Nigeria," while agreeing to discuss the issue with Washington, The Daily Wire reported. Last week, War Secretary Pete Hegseth met Nigeria’s national security adviser as part of the administration’s efforts to address the violence.
"Under [President Trump’s] leadership, [the Department of War] is working aggressively with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists," Hegseth said, according to The Daily Wire.
Brown said Nigerian Christians "would certainly say that the Nigerian government has not done enough to protect the freedoms and provide safety for the men and women on the ground there," and that Christian leaders expressed "an incredible sense of gratitude and thankfulness" for the CPC designation, while recognizing that much more needs to be done.
The crisis in Nigeria has also drawn wider international attention after a series of high‑profile attacks and kidnappings. Earlier this month, more than 300 students and 12 staff members were abducted from a Catholic boarding school by armed men, followed by the kidnapping of 25 girls from a government boarding school and an attack on a church in which at least two people were killed and the pastor was abducted, according to The Daily Wire’s report.
The Trump administration is also turning its focus to Sudan, where decades of persecution against Christians and other minorities have been carried out by radical Islamist groups and militias. Sudan currently ranks fifth on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of countries with the most severe Christian persecution.
Sudan has been marked by instability since civil war erupted in the early 1980s and continued until 2005. After more than two decades of conflict, South Sudan — with a population that is predominantly Christian — gained independence in 2011. Today, Sudan is in the grip of a new civil war that began in 2023 between the government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an Islamist‑leaning paramilitary group seeking control of the country. The Daily Wire, citing humanitarian and rights organizations, reports that the war has killed more than 150,000 people and forced over 12 million to flee their homes.
Pastor Gasim Domkog, who grew up in Sudan and now leads an Arabic‑speaking church in Nashville, told The Daily Wire that violence against Christians has been "nonstop" as the country has cycled through regime changes and civil wars. He said many of his relatives have been killed by Islamist extremist violence and that it is now rare to find Sudanese families untouched by loss.
Domkog said attacks have increasingly taken on an ethnic dimension alongside religion. In the Darfur region, militants have gone door‑to‑door killing thousands of people after the RSF seized control of key cities, he said. Most of those killed are Muslims targeted because of their darker skin and non‑Arab ethnicity. "At first, the jihadists were using religious war as holy war, but now they’re focusing on ethnicity," he told The Daily Wire. "They say that if you’re not of Arab descent, you need to be killed. Now, they’re killing their own people."
He added that in earlier phases of the conflict, the message from extremists was that people must convert and live under strict Sharia rule or face expulsion or death.
Open Doors says radical Islamist groups, some of them aligned with or influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, have long driven persecution in Sudan. These groups also target Muslims who oppose their ideology or come from different ethnic backgrounds, reinforcing the overlap between religious and ethnic violence.
Last week, Trump said that after meeting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman he had agreed that the United States would "do something very powerful having to do with Sudan," acknowledging that the conflict is complex and deeply entrenched. Human rights organizations have accused the United Arab Emirates of backing the RSF and have reported that countries including China, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Russia have supplied weapons or ammunition to different sides in the war, according to The Daily Wire.
“I thought it was just something that was crazy and out of control,” Trump said of the war in Sudan. “But I just see how important that is … and we’re going to start working in Sudan.”