Two Red Cross organizations said they were actively tracing about 17,000 missing-person cases across Nigeria as of July 2026, a figure that measures cases they can pursue through family contact rather than everyone who remains missing.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) said the July tally followed a review of nearly 24,000 cases they had handled over the years. The current count covers cases where workers can maintain contact with families and continue tracing. Relocation, changed phone numbers and security or access constraints can make contact difficult. The organizations said the revised total does not mean that fewer people are missing.
Kashim Mohammed told Al Jazeera that his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, disappeared in 2011 while traveling with their mother from Maiduguri to Port Harcourt. He told the outlet the pair were taken by gunmen whose identities were not known. Mohammed recalled that his father, Mohammed Kolo, believed she was alive. “Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,” Kolo said, according to his son.
Al Jazeera also reported that Muhammad Alhaji Bashir said his older brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, went missing around 2012 or 2013. The family brought photographs to a center receiving people rescued from conflict, but no one recognized him, the outlet reported.
Al Jazeera described families facing household strain as earnings fell and school costs became harder to cover. The ICRC has also described families in northeastern Nigeria being separated while fleeing attacks, and relatives being abducted or detained.
In a 2019 release, the ICRC recorded close to 22,000 missing-person reports from northeastern Nigeria over a decade of conflict; minors accounted for nearly 60% of those cases. That earlier count of reports differs from the 2026 active caseload. The ICRC said a case remained open until its network learned what happened or a family reported that the person had been found. The 2026 review therefore describes the reach of tracing work at that time, while the earlier figure covered reports accumulated over a decade.
The ICRC and NRCS said they would review and update the caseload periodically but did not set a date for the next update.
