Two years ago, I was kidnapped by Boko Haram. They held me captive, and every day I prayed that I would see my family again. By a miracle of God, I was able to escape. 

Sadly, most Christians who are captured by this terrible organization never live to tell their stories. And unless the West intervenes, kidnappings like mine — as well as killings — will only increase in my country, spread across the African continent and threaten the rest of the world. 

Today, as I travel throughout Nigeria providing relief as part of my work with iReach Global, I see that the violence has only grown—spreading like wildfire across the middle of my country, leaving behind a trail of ashes, mass graves and shattered lives. 

This year has brought wave after wave of coordinated attacks in Central Nigeria. More than 7,000 Christians have been killed. Entire villages — most of them Christian farming communities — were razed. Families now live in makeshift camps, traumatized and uncertain if they’ll ever return home. 

In early April, multiple coordinated assaults in the Bokkos area claimed hundreds of lives within a week. One community alone reported 52 deaths in a single attack, with thousands forced to flee. 

Later that month, in an area called Bassa, at least 51 people were slaughtered in a pre-dawn raid. The attackers came silently, setting homes ablaze and killing entire families as they slept. In Riyom, ambushes and targeted killings continued for months afterward. In one case, a bus full of passengers was stopped and attacked — 12 people killed on the spot. 

These are not random acts of violence. They are systematic, coordinated attempts to erase Christian communities from the region. 

As someone who has walked through burned villages and prayed with survivors, I can tell you the reality is even worse than the statistics suggest. I’ve seen mothers weeping beside mass graves. The smell of smoke from the smoldering remains of churches and schools still clings to my clothes. I’ve also spoken with children who no longer sleep through the night because they fear the next attack will come for them. 

This is not simply a matter of ‘clashes’ between farmers and herders, as government officials sometimes claim. It is a campaign of terror. It’s ethnic and religious cleansing disguised as conflict over land. 

And yet, the Nigerian government continues to downplay the crisis — failing to provide protection, food or medical care to the displaced. Some local leaders even warn communities not to speak to the media. But silence will not save us. 

I’ve seen mothers weeping beside mass graves. The smell of smoke from the smoldering remains of churches and schools still clings to my clothes.

The Nigerian government bears the primary responsibility to protect its people. That must begin with immediate and adequately resourced security deployments to protect vulnerable communities — especially during planting and harvest seasons when farmers are most exposed. Humanitarian corridors must be opened to deliver food and aid to thousands now living in desperate conditions. 

Independent investigations are also essential. Impunity is the oxygen that fuels these killings. Perpetrators must be identified and prosecuted—no matter their political connections or tribal affiliations. 

At the same time, Nigeria’s political class must stop turning our suffering into campaign slogans. I’ve heard politicians invoke the blood of victims as talking points during election campaigns while refusing to act. This must end. The lives of our people are not bargaining chips. 

The United States and other Western nations cannot look away. They have both the moral obligation and the diplomatic tools to press Nigeria toward real accountability. I believe the U.S. State Department must reinstate Nigeria’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern for egregious violations of religious freedom. This would send a clear signal to my government that the world is watching, and the killing of Christians in Nigeria will not be ignored. 

In addition, international partners should expand support for independent investigations and humanitarian assistance. I have visited many of these camps; the needs are immense. In some camps, families survive on one meal a day, drinking from muddy puddles, with no one to treat their wounds. Children go months without schooling. The international community can help fund the rebuilding of homes and provide psychosocial support for those who have endured unspeakable loss. 

The victims of these attacks are not soldiers or combatants. They are farmers, families, children and elders. They want nothing more than to live in peace, tend their fields and worship freely. Yet they have become targets of a campaign of hate. 

If urgent action is not taken, we risk watching entire Christian communities vanish from Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Not only that, but the reign of terror will continue to grow across the Sahel region of Africa and could ultimately threaten global security. 

And the silence of the world will be remembered as complicity. 

As someone who has survived the terror of Boko Haram and now witnesses this unfolding genocide, I plead with the global community: Do not look away. The suffering here is real, and it is growing. 

Nigeria is bleeding. But it does not have to be this way. With courage and help from the international community, we can still stop the slaughter and begin the long work of rebuilding. 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino is poised to play an even larger role in President Donald Trump’s administration, the president announced Sunday.

Trump says Scavino, in addition to his current role, will now lead the White House Presidential Personnel Office. The office was previously held by Sergio Gor, who is now transitioning to become the U.S. Ambassador to India.

‘I am pleased to announce that the great Dan Scavino, in addition to remaining Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, will head the White House Presidential Personnel Office, replacing Sergio Gor, who did a wonderful job in that position, and will now become the Ambassador to India,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

‘Dan will be responsible for the selection and appointment of almost all positions in government, a very big and important position. Congratulations Dan, you will do a fantastic job!’ he added.

Scavino’s new appointment comes as the Trump administration is in a pitched fight with Democrats to define the cause of the ongoing government shutdown.

Trump allies have pointed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s refusal to work with Republicans.

The president also sought to mitigate damage on Saturday by ordering War Secretary Pete Hegseth to make sure military service members get paid next week, regardless of the shutdown.

‘Chuck Schumer recently said, ‘Every day gets better’ during their Radical Left Shutdown,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘I DISAGREE! If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th.’

He said he directed Hegseth ‘to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th. We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS.’

The government shut down on Oct. 1, after Democrats and Republicans failed to pass a spending bill to fund the government, with Democrats concerned expiring Affordable Care Act tax cuts could raise premiums and that Medicaid cuts could leave people without coverage.

Fox News’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report

President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented war against cartels and has threatened narco-terrorists, saying he will ‘blow you out of existence’ as his administration seeks to curb the influx of drugs into the U.S. 

The White House sent lawmakers a memo Sept. 30 informing them that the U.S. is now participating in a ‘non-international armed conflict’ with drug smugglers — on top of conducting four fatal strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean since September. 

The Department of War recently announced a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the Southern Command area of responsibility, according to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. 

The aim of the task force is to ‘crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe,’ Hegseth wrote on X Friday. ‘The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.’

These recent developments suggest that Trump is eyeing targets within Venezuela, not just those within international waters, according to Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council international affairs think tank.

‘This is a sign that President Trump is taking the US war on drugs in Latin America to the next level,’ Ramsey said in a Monday email to Fox News Digital. ‘By involving the military, the president is going after drug cartels in a way that no previous US administration has dared to so far. I think it is likely that we will see the Pentagon evaluate targets inside Venezuela.’

Additional strikes could target more drug shipments or drug flights, which often take off from covert airfields near the Colombian border, Ramsey said. 

‘It’s a bad time to be posted in a guerrilla camp on the Colombian border or operating a Tren de Aragua safe house along the Caribbean trafficking route,’ Ramsey said. 

Even so, Ramsey said it would be challenging to strike within Venezuela’s territory. Doing so would require the U.S. to dismantle Venezuela’s air defense system, which would escalate hostilities by openly engaging with Venezuela’s military, he said. 

That’s a departure from the current approach, in which the U.S. has intentionally avoided targeting Venezuelan military assets, Ramsey said. 

‘When two Venezuelan F-16s flew over a US destroyer last month, the fact that those planes weren’t blown out of the sky suggests that the US is not interested in a shooting war with Venezuela’s military,’ Ramsey said. 

Trump himself has not ruled out conducting strikes within Venezuela though, and signaled such strikes could happen when he told military leaders in Quantico, Virginia, Sept. 30 that his administration would ‘look very seriously at cartels coming by land.’

So far, the Trump administration has utilized maritime forces to address drug threats, and has beefed up naval assets in the Caribbean in recent months. For example, Trump approved sending several U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers to bolster the administration’s counter-narcotics efforts in the region starting in August. 

‘I expect these deployments to continue for months or more than a year, with new ships rotating in to replace those that need to return home for maintenance or crew rest,’ Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told Fox News Digital in September. 

Nathan Jones, a nonresident scholar in drug policy and Mexico studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, predicted the strikes are unlikely to impact the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. That’s because fentanyl precursors originate in China, and are then produced in labs in Mexico before they head north without a pathway into the Caribbean. 

‘I wouldn’t expect your drug flow to be affected because of these strikes,’ Jones told Fox News Digital Tuesday. ‘This could, though, leave transnational criminal organizations running a little scared in terms of what the administration is going to do.’ 

Still, Jones said that he predicted drug flow routes would adapt and that land or aerial drug routes would take precedence over sea routes in the Caribbean. 

The strikes have prompted members of Congress to question their legality and senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., filed a war powers resolution in September that would block U.S. forces from engaging in ‘hostilities’ against certain non-state organizations. 

‘There has been no authorization to use force by Congress in this way,’ Schiff told reporters Wednesday. ‘I feel it is plainly unconstitutional. The fact that the administration claims to have a list and has put organizations on a list does not somehow empower the administration to usurp Congress’s power of declaring war or refusing to declare war or refusing to authorize the use of force.’ 

However, the measure failed in the Senate by a 51–48 margin Wednesday. Even so, the measure attracted support from Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted alongside their Democratic counterparts for the resolution. 

Other Republicans have defended the strikes though, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said that Trump’s actions were well within his rights and that the resolution was ‘unreasonable.’ 

‘When he sees an attack like this coming — an attack of drugs or explosives or anything else that’s going to kill Americans — he not only has the authority to do something about it, he has the duty to do something about it,’ Risch said Wednesday before the vote. 

President Donald Trump said Sunday that Hamas may release the 20 hostages it is holding ‘a little bit early.’

Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the Middle East, where he was asked about the latest on the hostages and when they might be released.

‘So, they have the hostages — I understand all 20 — and we may get them out a little bit early,’ Trump said. ‘Getting them was amazing, actually, because we were involved, and they were in places you don’t want to know about.’

The president’s comments come as Hamas faces a deadline to return all remaining hostages to Israel, following a peace deal that ended the two-year-long Israel-Hamas war.

The peace agreement, brokered by President Trump, sparked celebrations across a region plagued by violence since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Earlier on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance warned that some of the hostages who were killed while in captivity by Hamas may never be returned to their families.

‘The reality is that some of the hostages may never get back, but I do think, with some effort, we’ll be able to give them to their families so they at least have some closure,’ Vance said on Fox News’ ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’

He continued, noting that while rescuing living hostages remains the Trump administration’s top priority, returning the remains of those killed is also an important effort to give families closure.

‘We do want to give these people the ability to have a proper burial with their loved ones who were murdered by brutal terrorists, and that matters to us,’ Vance said. ‘It matters to the families, and it will remain a focus, but it’s going to take some time.’

The vice president stopped short of certainly, though, saying he believes most of the victims’ remains – but not all – will eventually be recovered.

Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump will spend the first part of the week in the Middle East to oversee a historic peace deal between Israel and Hamas, a landmark agreement expected to end the two-year war in Gaza and bring home the remaining hostages.

Before boarding Air Force One, Trump told reporters that the hostages could be released earlier and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did a ‘very good job’ helping secure the deal.

‘The war is over,’ Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before boarding a nearly 12-hour flight to Israel. After landing in Tel Aviv, Trump is expected to meet with families of hostages and then give an address at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem.

Trump will then travel to Egypt to attend an international summit in the seaside city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to finalize an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza. More than 20 world leaders, including Trump, are expected to attend, an Egyptian presidential spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

After a handful of hours in Israel and Egypt, Trump will board Air Force One and return to the White House in the early morning hours on Tuesday in order to honor the late Charlie Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

‘It’s a very quick trip, but I’ll be making two major stops, and then I’ll be on the plane trying to get back in time for Charlie,’ Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. ‘They’re going to have a great celebration at the White House in the East Room,’ he added. The award ceremony coincides with what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday on Oct. 14.

Kirk, the charismatic founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), gained recognition for his signature political debates on college campuses. He was assassinated on Sept. 10, during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. The gathering was the first stop on TPUSA’s planned ‘American Comeback Tour.’

Kirk’s memorial service drew one of the largest public turnouts for a private citizen, with about 90,000 people in attendance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona and nearby overflow venues.

Trump previously announced last month that he would award Kirk the award posthumously.

Monday marks the 100th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth – an occasion that brings together leaders and supporters from across the Atlantic to pay tribute to her life. 

We at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute are honored to participate in the celebration, an occasion that also invites us to reflect on her legacy and connection with Ronald Reagan in the context of our modern era. Namely, what made her partnership with President Reagan so effective, and what might it teach us today about how civility can shape world affairs?

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s effectiveness – both in dealings with each other and in other world leaders with whom they were less naturally aligned – depended on trust and civility. In today’s divided political world, their example is one we can all learn from.

When we think of the two leaders, we tend to picture strength: two leaders who stood firm against communism, championed free markets and restored confidence in the West. But President Reagan also believed that personal relationships were central to politics. In a 1989 letter in National Review, he crystallized that sentiment as follows: ‘personal relations matter more in international politics than the historians would have us believe.’

That was the core of his approach: even the hardest negotiations work best when leaders see each other as partners, not just opponents. It doesn’t mean that personal relationships supersede national interest – great leaders have to be unwavering at times – but it does mean that a key component of good diplomacy is the ability to remain civil and acknowledge others’ humanity, be they adversaries or allies.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan’s leadership in Soviet Union dealings demonstrates this principle in action. For instance, when Mikhail Gorbachev emerged on the world stage, Thatcher chose to approach him as a person worthy of negotiation rather than a caricature of Soviet power. ‘We can do business together,’ she pragmatically asserted. And she was right. Though their visions for their country were vastly different, grounding Soviet negotiations in respect and practical assessment made diplomacy possible.

Importantly, President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher never abandoned principle for politeness. They were strong leaders, firm and uncompromising in their convictions. But civility gave them the leverage to achieve what force or rhetoric alone could not. 

The INF Treaty, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the eventual end of the Cold War all depended on this kind of disciplined, strategic civility. Leaders could disagree sharply and even spar aggressively, but they never allowed that disagreement to destroy trust or get in the way of progress.

Civility is not a moral high road, it’s a tool. It allowed these leaders to be candid with each other, trusting they would be received with understanding – and creating the strong foundation which underpinned the U.S. and U.K. alliance. Then as now, civility creates space for honest conversations. It allows important initiatives to move forward without unnecessary friction.

Today, that lesson is urgent. The United States and our democratic allies face pressure from resurgent authoritarian powers, global instability and domestic polarization. The instinct to respond with anger or mistrust is strong. But history shows that enduring security and progress come from discipline, mutual respect and the ability to maintain civility even under pressure. 

And in times of global tension, reinforcing alliances matters more than ever. We saw this exemplified by President Donald Trump in his recent meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, where he declared, ‘We have a relationship like no other… we will always be united.’ His statement embodies the Reagan-Thatcher alliance at its best. This disposition is a precursor to any constructive discussions about advancing security and stability, especially when it comes to complex issues such as these.

President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher remind us that civility is not deference; rather, it is a practical strategy for getting things done. As we remember Margaret Thatcher on her 100th birthday, we should also remember the example she set. Civility enabled both leaders to be effective and, ultimately, to shape history. In a world full of uncertainty and division, their legacy remains as essential now as it was then.