Nigeria Islamic Herdsmen Kill Pentecostal Pastor
Suspected Islamic Fulani herdsmen have killed a Pentecostal pastor in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta oil hub, Christian rights activists confirmed Thursday.
Suspected Islamic Fulani herdsmen have killed a Pentecostal pastor in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta oil hub, Christian rights activists confirmed Thursday.
The deputy vice-chancellor of the Christian Anchor University in Lagos state, Nigeria has reportedly been released after being kidnapped by suspected Muslim Fulani herdsmen on Jan. 18, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. John Fatokun is understood to have been released on Wednesday, Jan. 20. Nevertheless, Nigeria ranks number one on the 2021 World Watch List for countries in which Christians are killed for their faith.
A prominent Catholic bishop in Nigeria, kidnapped on December 27, has been released unharmed in an “answer to prayers,” his church said Saturday.
Muslim Fulani militants are continuing to murder Christians in Nigeria, and at least 18 people from Christian communities in Kaduna state were slaughtered in the week leading up to Christmas, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Christian farming communities reportedly faced new attacks and abductions on Christmas Eve by suspected Islamic Fulani fighters who recently killed dozens of Christians.
Families of more than 300 Nigerian kidnapped schoolboys fear they may face similar pressures as Christian schoolgirls abducted earlier by Islamist militants.
The United States added Nigeria to a blacklist of countries that violate religious liberties Monday, DW reports. Joining Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and China, Nigeria is now listed as a country “of concern” “under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.”
Funeral services were underway in northeast Nigeria on Monday after more than 100 people were killed in suspected Islamic attacks over the weekend.
At least 110 farmworkers were slaughtered in a single attack in Nigeria’s Borno state Saturday by terrorists believed to be members of Boko Haram, the Christian Post reports. Armed men on some 60 motorbikes gunned down the rice field workers in what a UN official described as “the most violent direct attack against innocent civilians this year.”
The slaughter of Christians in Nigeria by Muslim Fulani terrorists is continuing: seven Christians were murdered in Kaduna state on Saturday night and Sunday morning (Nov. 28-29), Morning Star News reports. These are just the latest killings of Christians among the many already committed this month.
The governor of Nigeria’s northwestern state of Kaduna has condemned the killings of a prominent Christian leader and his teenage son by suspected Islamic Fulani militants.
Although exact figures are disputed locally, more than 100 predominately Christian villages in Nigeria’s Kaduna are reported to now be occupied by Fulani Islamic militants, persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) reported last week. Thousands of residents from the occupied villages have reportedly been displaced by the terrorists. Nevertheless, ICC said, “disagreements over attacks and incidents have led to the confusion and furthered the problems that have plagued the Middle Belt Crisis.”
A video released on October 29 shows that a pastor in Nigeria who was abducted by Islamic terrorists on October 19 is still alive, Morning Star News reports. Appealing to the governor of Plateau state and to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and denominational Christian leaders for help, the Rev. Polycarp Zongo of the Church of Christ In Nations (COCIN) says that he is together with two Christian women who were also abducted by the “caliphate” militants of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Christians are among those singled out for deadly attacks as violence spreads throughout Nigeria, Christian rights investigators warned Thursday.
According to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG), Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari “has done virtually nothing to address” the killings and kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. Therefore, the murderous persecution of Christians in Nigeria continues unchecked. In one attack this month, a pastor and two church members were killed and two were kidnapped. Then, days later, a church elder was shot in the stomach while his teenage twin daughters were kidnapped, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
Islamic Fulani militants have killed a Nigerian pastor after he was already wounded in the same attack, Christian rights investigators confirmed.
Muslim Fulani herdsmen are suspected of murdering three members of the Evangelical Church Winning All denomination in Nigeria’s Kaduna state early on Sunday morning, the Christian Post reports. Two church members were also abducted in the same attack and a further five were kidnapped in a separate attack on a nearby community the same day. The killings and abductions are the latest in ongoing murderous assaults by Islamic extremist terrorists on Christian communities in Nigeria.
Christians, including children, have been kidnapped and one person was killed and a church destroyed in the latest attacks by Muslim fighters in north-central Nigeria, an advocacy group said Wednesday.
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law has published a report called “Nigeria: A Killing Field of Defenseless Christians,” in which it estimates that some 11,500 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria since 2015 by Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and highway bandits. Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed a further 11 Christians in the state of Kaduna last week, CBN News reports.
The unchecked slaughter of Christians in Nigeria is intensifying as thirty-seven more people were murdered by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in Kaduna state this month, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.