Civil society organisations (CSOs) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have raised fresh alarm over Nigeria’s worsening security crisis, revealing that more than 34,000 Nigerians have been killed in incidents linked to mass atrocities within the last five years.
The groups made the disclosure during a Conflict-Specific Dialogue (CSD) held in Abuja on Thursday, as part of activities marking the 9th National Day of Mourning scheduled for May 28.
The event brought together rights advocates, security analysts, and civil society actors under the theme: “The Value of a Nigerian Life: Memory, Accountability, and the Politics of Preventable Death.”
Led by Global Rights, alongside Amnesty International, Sesor Empowerment Foundation and other partners, the CSOs called for urgent reforms in Nigeria’s security and justice systems, warning that the continued cycle of killings, abductions, and impunity is pushing communities to the brink.
Programme manager of Global Rights, Noya Sedi, said Nigeria is trapped in a pattern of recurring violence that is both predictable and preventable, stressing that each statistic represents a human life cut short.
“We gather in a moment that is both necessary and difficult,” she said. “Necessary, because too many lives have been lost in ways that were preventable. Difficult, because behind every statistic we reference a person—a child, a parent, a sibling, and a friend.”
She noted that violence has spread across multiple regions, from Benue and Borno to Plateau and Zamfara, adding that insecurity has become a persistent national reality rather than isolated incidents.
According to Global Rights data, at least 6,518 Nigerians were killed in mass atrocity incidents in 2025 alone, with thousands more in preceding years.
Sedi explained that the National Day of Mourning, first established in 2018, emerged from the absence of reliable documentation and national accountability for violent deaths.
“Part of the reason this movement began was because many of these deaths were happening without adequate documentation or accountability,” she said. “Over the years, that gap became impossible to ignore.”
She added that the mourning initiative is not symbolic alone but an act of civic resistance.
“The National Day of Mourning exists to remember the dead and to insist that the living cannot continue to inherit the consequences of silence, delay, and inaction.”
Co-Chair of the Community of Practice Against Mass Atrocities, Ken Henshaw, gave a more detailed breakdown of casualty figures, revealing that between 2019 and 2026, at least 40,411 people have been killed and 23,187 abducted across the country.
He said the initiative to document mass killings began as a response to government inaction and what he described as a “culture of indifference” toward human life.
“We launched Nigeria Mourns as a counter-culture to what seemed like a government where there was no emergency or empathy,” Henshaw said. “We imagined our efforts would push authorities into action. Unfortunately, it did not.”
He warned that despite years of advocacy, violence has escalated, not declined.
