{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415122", "Washington Examiner article on Smith's House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee hearing on Nigeria'Portion of Catholic students kidnapped in Nigeria escape as country grapples with anti-Christian violence'", "2025-11-23", "2025", "2025-11", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "By Emily Hallas\n\nPublished November 23, 2025 at 5:41 PM\n\nA fraction of over 300 students who were recently abducted from a Catholic school by Nigerian militants have escaped to freedom, the Catholic Church and Christian Association of Nigeria announced on Sunday.\n\nGunmen kidnapped students and teachers from St. Mary\u2019s School in Papiri, Niger state, on Friday, marking the latest episode in a spate of attacks against Christians from radicalized Islamist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen. The Trump administration has voiced increasing concern that the violence, which has been ongoing for years, amounts to a \u201cgenocide\u201d against Christians.\n\nThe latest mass kidnapping prompted the Nigerian government to close all schools in Niger state, and triggered pleas from Pope Leo for the \u201cimmediate release\u201d of those who had been taken hostage.\n\nAround 50 of those kidnapped have escaped thus far. But around 253 of the kidnapped children, along with 12 staff members and teachers, are still being held hostage, said CAN Chairman Bulus Yohanna, a Catholic Bishop who is also the proprietor of the school.\n\nThis photo released by the Christian Association of Nigeria shows the dormitories of St. Mary\u2019s Catholic Primary and Secondary School after gunmen abducted children and staff in Papiri community in Nigeria, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (Christian Association of Nigeria via AP)\n\nDuring a congressional hearing on Nigeria last week, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) warned that \u201cshockingly brutal\u201d attacks against Christians are spreading from Muslim majority areas to locations where they had previously enjoyed a higher degree of safety.\n\n\u201cMore believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world \u2026 particularly men, while women are often kidnapped and targeted for what sexual violence, rape, and other abuse,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThese militants also destroy homes, churches, and livelihoods.\u201d\n\nAround 5 million Christians have been displaced and \u201cforced into internally displaced persons camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and subregional borders\u201d in the country, Smith said, citing a European Union report. He added that around 19,000 churches have been attacked and an estimated 10,000 schools across the country have been closed due to the violence at the time of the hearing, which was held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee\u2019s Subcommittee on Africa. Other lawmakers cited estimates stating nearly 17,000 Christians have been killed since 2019.\n\nSmith heads the committee, which held the hearing in the wake of the Trump administration\u2019s move to designate Nigeria as a \u201cCountry of Particular Concern\u201d under the International Religious Freedom Act \u2014 a status used to highlight \u201cparticularly severe\u201d religious freedom violations.\n\nThe New Jersey lawmaker said violence isn\u2019t limited to Christians. Many moderate Muslims are being targeted as well by extremist Islamists, he said.\n\n\u201cApproximately 34,000 moderate Muslims have been murdered as well since 2009. And you know that is less focused upon\u2014I raise it every time, and I hope we all will. They\u2019re killing those who don\u2019t conform to the radical Islamist view, and so they get killed too. I met with many Imams on trips to Nigeria as well as here, and they say, \u2018if we speak out, we\u2019ll be firebombed too,'\u201d Smith said.\n\nState Department official Jonathan Pratt voiced concern during his testimony in the House hearing that the Nigerian government has failed to meaningfully intervene in violence against residents. He highlighted militant attacks on Christian farming communities in Benue State in June that killed \u201cover 200,\u201d that \u201cset homes and food stores ablaze and locked families inside burning buildings.\u201d Another attack on Christians in the Plateau State in December 2023, \u201cresulted in hundreds of victims\u201d and destroyed \u201cat least eight churches,\u201d Pratt said.\n\nThe government\u2019s lack of action \u201cis tragic and unacceptable. It represents a serious failing on the part of the authorities,\u201d said Pratt, who leads the State Department\u2019s Bureau of African Affairs. \u201cCommunities are still reeling today from the overt religious-based violence of those attacks and their unanswered calls for help.\u201d\n\nA Nigerian Bishop with the Diocese of Benue delivered additional testimony, urging the U.S. to offer Christians in his country additional support, or else risk Christianity\u2019s \u201celimination\u201d in parts of Nigeria.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415122"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.9342564046382904, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}