The U.S. President, Donald Trump, had on the night of December confirmed that the country’s forces launched a “powerful airstrike” on Islamic State for West African Province hideout in Sokoto State. Ripples had reported that the Sokoto State Government welcomed the Nigeria-United States joint airstrike that targeted ISWAP terrorists in Tangaza Local Government Area of the state.
For this report, RipplesMetrics analysed all documented killings that occurred on Christmas Day to identify yearly fatality patterns, the states affected, and the frequency of violent incidents.
Fatalities linked to violent incidents on Christmas Day rose sharply in 2024, marking the deadliest Christmas Day recorded in the dataset over the past decade. Data from documented incidents on December 25 show that at least 60 people were killed in 2024, the highest annual toll since records in the sheet began in 2015. The figure represents a significant increase from nine fatalities recorded on Christmas Day in 2023 and continues a pattern of sharp year-to-year fluctuations in holiday-period violence.
Between 2015 and 2024, the data capture nearly 200 deaths linked to violent events that occurred specifically on Christmas Day, underscoring how the period has repeatedly coincided with deadly incidents rather than a lull in violence.
Early Years: Lower Fatalities, Fewer Incidents
From 2015 to 2019, Christmas Day fatalities remained relatively low, staying mostly in double digits or below. In 2015, 13 people were killed across two recorded incidents. The number dropped to 10 fatalities in 2016 and remained at 10 in 2017, despite a rise in the number of incidents that year.
By 2018, Christmas Day deaths fell further to seven fatalities, before edging back up to 11 in 2019. Across these five years, no single year exceeded 15 deaths, even as incidents occurred in multiple locations.
2020 Spike Marks a Turning Point
The trend shifted sharply in 2020. That year, 54 people were killed on Christmas Day, nearly five times the toll recorded in 2019. The spike coincided with a sharp increase in the number of violent events, rising to 15 separate incidents on December 25 alone, the highest up to that point in the dataset.
The 2020 figures represent a clear break from the relatively lower fatality counts of previous years and remain one of the deadliest Christmas Days on record, second only to 2024.
Brief Decline Followed by Renewed Increase
Following the 2020 peak, fatalities dropped significantly in 2021. That year, Christmas Day incidents resulted in three deaths, the lowest annual figure in the entire dataset, even though eight separate events were recorded.
The decline was short-lived. In 2022, fatalities climbed again to 18 deaths, spread across 10 incidents. While lower than the 2020 peak, the figure marked a six-fold increase compared to 2021.
In 2023, the number of deaths fell to nine, despite a rise in recorded events to 12 incidents, suggesting lower lethality per incident compared to earlier spikes.
2024 Records the Deadliest Christmas Day
The most significant shift occurred in 2024. Data show 60 fatalities recorded across 14 incidents on Christmas Day, making it the deadliest December 25 in the ten-year period covered by the sheet. The death toll surpassed the previous high of 54 recorded in 2020 and accounted for nearly one-third of all Christmas Day fatalities documented since 2015.
The 2024 figures indicate not only a rise in the number of incidents but also a sharp increase in their lethality. Compared with 2023, fatalities increased by more than 560 percent, even though the number of incidents rose only modestly.
Overall, the data show that Christmas Day violence has followed an uneven pattern, marked by sudden spikes rather than steady increases. While some years recorded fewer than 10 deaths, others saw fatalities surge above 50, highlighting how the holiday period has repeatedly coincided with high-impact violent events.
Across the decade, the combination of recurring incidents and rising death tolls in peak years suggests that Christmas Day has remained a vulnerable period, with 2024 standing out as the most lethal in the series.
By: James Odunayo
The post RipplesMetrics: Mapping Christmas Day killings in a decade appeared first on Latest Nigeria News | Top Stories from Ripples Nigeria.
