The U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa held a hearing Thursday on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria in what subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., described as the “systematic and accelerating violence against predominantly Christian communities in Nigeria.”

Members from both parties questioned administration officials and outside experts as witness after witness described the collapse of security, mass killings, kidnappings and the impunity that has turned Africa’s most populous country into what one lawmaker called “the deadliest place on Earth to be a Christian.”

Smith, who has long been sounding the alarm about the persecution of Christians in the country, described the situation in vivid terms.

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“Nigeria is ground zero, the focal point of the most brutal and murderous anti-Christian persecution in the world today,” he said.

He called the session “a very critical hearing,” noting it was his 12th such hearing and that he has led three human rights trips to the country.

Quoting earlier testimony from Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Makurdi Diocese, Smith cited militants who “kill and boast about it …  kidnap and rape and enjoy total impunity from elected officials.”

He highlighted a June 13 attack in Yola, saying reports showed “278 people — men, women and children — were killed in a manner too gory to describe by people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ while slaughtering their victims.”

“This is not random violence. It is deliberate persecution,” Smith said. “There may be other factors, but religion is driving this.”

Smith also noted that moderate Muslims who speak out against extremists are often murdered as well, underscoring the scope of Nigeria’s “culture of denial.”

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Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., the panel’s ranking member, agreed Nigeria faces devastating insecurity but warned against “oversimplistic narratives.”

She cited overlapping drivers — extremist insurgencies, farmer-herder conflict and organized banditry — and said the 25 girls recently kidnapped in Kebbi state were all Muslim.

“Violence affects everyone,” she said. “False narratives erase the real drivers of violence and make it harder to find solutions.”

She condemned President Trump’s remarks about “going into Nigeria guns blazing,” calling such rhetoric reckless and illegal and said unilateral U.S. military action would be “counterproductive.”

Jacobs claimed the Trump administration cut peace-building and conflict-prevention tools that once helped reduce violence, programs, she said, “that proactively prevented and directly addressed the violence this administration is now concerned about.”

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Rep. John James, R-Mich., described Nigeria’s crisis in stark terms. 

“This is one of the gravest religious freedom crises in the world,” he said. “The deadliest place on earth to be a Christian.”

He cited estimates that nearly 17,000 Christians have been killed since 2019, calling the murders “a sustained pattern of religiously motivated violence, often ignored or even enabled by the Nigerian government.”

Appearing on video from Benue state, Bishop Wilfred Anagbe detailed church burnings, mass displacement and priests targeted for abduction.

“Nigeria remains the deadliest place on earth to be a Christian,” Anagbe said. “More believers are killed there annually than in the rest of the world combined.”

He thanked the administration for putting Nigeria as a  Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious freedom violations but urged that it be backed with sanctions and greater humanitarian support for displaced civilians.

Two senior state department officials, Jonathan Pratt and Jacob McGee, defended the administration’s approach while acknowledging the horror of the attacks.

Pratt called the situation “a very serious security problem,” saying the U.S. seeks to “raise the protection of Christians to the top of the Nigerian government’s priorities.”

McGee added, “The levels of violence and atrocities committed against Christians are appalling. … Nigerians are being attacked and killed because of their faith.”

He pointed to blasphemy laws in 12 northern states that can carry the death penalty, calling them “unacceptable in a free and democratic society.”

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Both officials said the U.S. is developing a plan to “incentivize and compel” the Nigerian government to protect religious communities.

In one exchange between Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., and an expert on Nigeria, he asked bluntly, “Ma’am, are we frenemies? Are we — what are we?”

Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, replied, “We’re friends.”

She added that U.S.–Nigeria engagement must be “from a place of honesty” and that Nigerians “acknowledge something must be done quickly about the levels of insecurity.”

Onubogu warned, however, that a “narrow narrative that reduces Nigeria’s security situation to a single story” could deepen divisions.

Stutzman pressed her further, noting, “If Nigeria’s government cannot stop the violence, they should be willing to ask the international community for help.”

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As the hearing came to a close, Smith warned, “The Nigerian government has a constitutional obligation to protect its citizens. If it cannot stop the slaughter, then America — and the world — must not look away.”

US president’s controversial deployment of soldiers to US cities has raised alarm and a series of legal challenges.

A United States federal judge has said the Trump administration must pause its deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, a setback for the president’s push to send the military into cities across the country.

US District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily suspended the deployment in a ruling on Thursday, responding to a lawsuit filed by city officials who said Trump had usurped policing powers and was using the military for domestic law enforcement.

The federal government has unique powers in Washington, DC. But the Trump administration has taken the controversial step to deploy soldiers in a growing list of Democrat-led cities, despite frequent protests from state and local officials and a lack of any emergency conditions.

Cobb, who said in her decision that the president cannot deploy soldiers for “whatever reason” he wants, gave the Trump administration 21 days to appeal the order before it goes into effect.

Lawyers for the government slammed the lawsuit that challenged the military deployment as a “frivolous stunt”.

“There is no sensible reason for an injunction unwinding this arrangement now, particularly since the District’s claims have no merit,” Department of Justice lawyers wrote.

Trump has also deployed troops to cities such as Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois, in what he depicts as an effort to tackle crime and round up undocumented immigrants.

Residents and civil liberties groups have documented aggressive raids and what they say are widespread rights violations and racial profiling by federal agents during those crackdowns, in which US citizens have sometimes been swept up.

Trump has threatened to imprison local and state officials who criticise his deployment of the military.

A legal challenge filed in September by Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb said that US democracy would “never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand”.

Trump ordered the first deployment in August, involving about 2,300 National Guard members from various states and hundreds of federal agents from various agencies.

PANAMA CITY (AP) — A planned trip by some Panamanian lawmakers to Taiwan has unleashed the latest diplomatic spat with China as the Central American country tries to navigate the turbulent waters between the Asian superpower and the United States.

On Wednesday, Panama’s Foreign Relations Ministry and the U.S. ambassador to the country criticized China’s diplomats in Panama for asking the lawmakers to cancel their trip to Taiwan, with the ministry accusing the Chinese Embassy of “meddling” in internal Panamanian affairs.

This followed comments from Panama President José Raúl Mulino a week earlier saying that the planned Taiwan trip did not have the approval of his administration and reminding the lawmakers that the executive branch was responsible for Panama’s foreign policy.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island off its coast, as its territory and has staged threatening military drills in the surrounding waters in recent years.

China has also been embroiled in a spat with Japan after new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Nov. 7 that a Chinese naval blockade or other action against Taiwan could be grounds for a Japanese military response. Her comments drew a warning from China against any interference in Taiwan.

In Latin America, Chinese diplomats have worked to get governments to establish diplomatic relations with it and cut ties to Taiwan.

Panama established relations with China in 2017 after breaking them off with Taiwan.

The Trump administration has brought the weight of the U.S. government to bear on the issue this year, starting with accusations that China could influence the operations of the strategically important Panama Canal because a Hong Kong-based conglomerate held the long-term concession to operate ports at either end of the canal. The canal’s administration and the Panamanian government have denied that China had any sway over canal operations.

On Wednesday, Panama’s Foreign Relations Ministry said in a statement that “as a sovereign country, it does not accept restrictions, nor pressure that tries to influence the legitimate decisions of its subordinates.” The statement did not name China, but came a day after one of the country’s largest newspapers, La Prensa, reported that 10 lawmakers were asked by the Chinese Embassy to immediately cancel the trip because it “seriously violates the principle of one China” and constitutes “an intervention in Chinese internal affairs.”

The Chinese Embassy referred a request from The Associated Press to the reporting from La Prensa.

Mulino has lamented that Panama has been drawn into the U.S.-China tensions.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama on his first trip as the U.S. top diplomat in February, he made China’s influence a top issue. Mulino said then that Panama would not be renewing its agreement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative when it expires. The initiative promotes and funds infrastructure and development projects that critics say leave poor member countries heavily indebted to China.

In August, U.S. Ambassador to Panama Kevin Marino Cabrera gave public backing to Panamanian lawmakers who joined the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from dozens of countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing.

In September, the Trump administration said it was restricting visas “for Central American nationals who, while in Central American countries and intentionally acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), knowingly direct, authorize, fund, provide significant support to, or carry out activities that undermine the rule of law in Central America.”

Some of the lawmakers who planned to make the Taiwan trip later this week defended their decision. Some said the trip would expose them to models and experiences that could help Panama’s modernization, others cited opportunities for investment and cooperation.

On Wednesday, Cabrera addressed the controversy, saying that China’s Embassy “shouldn’t be involved in those issues.”