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 Oct. 7, 2023. Amnesty International has not called an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, 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 recognized in 2016, yet they are barely mentioned today. Then-first lady 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.
