Over the past decade, jihadist violence in sub-Saharan Africa has killed more than 150,000 people — a toll that likely exceeds the entire recorded history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including after October 7, 2023. Amnesty International has not called an emergency session, the university protesters are absent, and op-ed pages have been largely quiet.
Even when noticed, victims of jihadism disappear quickly from the news and from world concern. The Yazidis of Iraq were subjected to a genocide that the United Nations formally recognized in 2016, yet they are barely mentioned today. Michelle Obama was outraged in 2014 when Boko Haram jihadists abducted 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in Nigeria; she tweeted out the slogan “#BringBackOurGirls,” but then dropped the entire matter after a few short weeks.
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