It’s not the first time terrorists have raided schools and kidnapped a large group of children in Nigeria.
On Friday, 303 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped from St. Mary’s, a…
It’s not the first time terrorists have raided schools and kidnapped a large group of children in Nigeria.
On Friday, 303 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped from St. Mary’s, a Nigerian Catholic school in Niger, the mid-western area of Nigeria. Of those students, 50 children, aged 10 to 18, escaped individually over the weekend, Fox News reports.
Just days before, armed men killed at least one staff member and captured 25 girls from a boarding school in Kebbi State in northwestern Nigeria.
Rev. Father Remigius Ihyula spoke to Fox News about the decades of slaughter and persecution Christians have faced in Nigeria, saying the attacks date to the early 2000s.
“We have documented these killings since 2001, so it’s not just 10 years like people want to refer to,” he said. “Maybe the picking of the killings and abductions can be reduced to 10 years, but we have systematic documentation of these killings taking place as far back as 2001 when the Catholic Church in the diocese first opened Internally Displaced People’s camp. So we have experienced these killings and displacement for many, many years.”
He explained the demographic split of Nigeria with the south being predominately Christian and the north predominately Muslim.
The North and middle regions of Nigeria have endured the most persecution, and the Boko Haram – which translates to “Western education is forbidden” – has established terrorist sites across these regions.
Boko Haram gained international attention in 2014 when it captured 276 girls in Chibok, 91 of whom are still in captivity, National Review reports. In another incident in 2018, over 100 girls were taken, one of whom remains captive because she has refused to convert from Christianity to Islam.
That captive, Leah Sharibu, whose name means “woman of worth,” was just 14 when kidnapped from her school. Her parents named her after the biblical matriarch, “known for her strong faith and resilience and the fulfillment of divine purpose,” according to the National Review.
“They either marry these young girls or they trade them off to other Arab countries,” Ihyula told Fox of the terrorists. “We hear that Libya is a transit point in my own state. There is a case last week of some [who] were trafficked to those places, and so many of them will be sold, or many of them will be married to these militants themselves.”
Ihyula also explained the growing presence of additional terrorist groups, saying the “deadliest Islamic group” in Nigeria today is the Fulani Ethnic Militia, operating in the middle region of Nigeria.
“They come on motorcycles. They surround villages. Displace a lot of people. Kill as many as they can,” he said.
The Catholic Church has established Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps to aid both Christians and Muslims across Nigeria. The Islamic terrorists even persecute Muslims who refuse to endorse jihad – the radical, violent defense of Islam – National Review reports.
At the IDP camps, women can visit trauma care centers to cope with the physical abuse they endure.
An anonymous psychiatrist recounted one of his patient’s stories:
“I woke up to the sounds of gunshots,” she said. “Part of my village was on fire… Six heavily armed men forced me to the ground and tied my hands. My husband was made to kneel down and asked to recite the shahadah (the Islamic declaration of faith). He refused… [and] was brutally murdered before me and my two kids… We were made to trek for over five hours into the forest… along with 56 other women… I was beaten, tortured, denied food, and locked up in a cage for refusing to convert to Islam. When they saw I could not be convinced nor forced to change my religion, I was declared a slave.”
This year alone, 7,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria, with 125,000 total killed since 2009. Since then, 19,000 churches have been burned to the ground, Fox News reports. President Donald Trump recently declared Nigeria a “country of particular concern,” called the attacks “genocide,” and told Fox News the persecution is “a disgrace.”
“We stand ready, willing and able, to save our great Christian population around the world, this is not going to happen,” Trump said in his announcement. “The killing of Christians is not going to happen.”
The U.S. has sent more than $350 million in arms to Nigeria this year, Fox News reports. Trump has threatened to send troops with “guns a blazing” to “wipe out Islamist terrorists” if the slaughter does not cease.
An unnamed Nigerian mission leader thanked President Trump in a statement, reported by Fox News.
“This is an answered prayer,” he said. “I tell you, Christians are excited that Trump is taking this as a priority. For the first time in many years, America is focusing its eye on Nigeria and the violence that Christians are facing.”