The combination of COVID-19 and the rise in terrorist activity in Nigeria has left Christians in that country in peril, said Nigerian human rights group leader Dalyop Solomon.

“Life became very, very brutish. You will wish you had not been born in this part of the world. There was no way out. There was no way out,” the CEO of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria told The Christian Post. “Behind us are the Egyptians, in front of us is the Red Sea.”

Nigeria’s government has advised Christians to stay in their homes to avoid COVID-19, said Solomon. But if they remain locked down at home, they cannot escape when groups of terrorists attack them. The government fails to respond to these attacks, which have increased in frequency across Nigeria. In 2020, human rights groups estimated that over 2,200 Christians were murdered by radical Islamist militants.