Nigerian army chief estimates death toll by Boko Haram at 3,000

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which is waging war against Christians in Nigeria, has been responsible for an estimated 3,000 deaths since 2009, according to an army chief.

Boko Haram militants are fighting to establish an Islamic state

The figure given by Azubuike Ihejirika on 6 November of the total number of Boko Haram victims is the highest reported by an official source. The group has been carrying out deadly attacks on churches and Christian communities as well as the security forces and official targets in its campaign to establish an Islamic state in Northern Nigeria.

Barnabas Aid contacts in Nigeria have been logging attacks against Christians by Boko Haram and other Muslim groups over the last two years. As well as the targeting of churches, these include the cold-blooded assassination of Christian families in their homes. Children, pregnant women and the elderly have not been spared in these violent episodes.

Among the most harrowing of the scores of incidents recorded by our contacts are:

• A Christian mother and her four children were slaughtered in their home in Dabwak, Plateau state, on 28 February 2011.
• A pre-dawn attack on a Christian village in Kano state on 6 May 2011 resulted in the deaths of 17 residents, including a pastor’s wife and three children.    
• A pastor who preached religious tolerance was hacked to death along with his son at their church in Jos, Plateau state, on 29 August 2011.
• An elderly Christian couple and their two grandchildren were shot dead in their home in Dabwak, Plateau state, on 5 September 2011.
• A Christian woman in labour was hacked to death along with 13 members of her family in a midnight raid on Vwang Fwil, Plateau state, on 10 September 2011.
• Five Christian traders were executed in Madalla near the capital Abuja on 22 September 2011 when they failed to recite verses from the Quran.  
• A bombing and shooting rampage that targeted six churches and a police station in Potiskum, Yobe state, on 4 November 2011 left 150 people dead and 200 injured, most of them Christians.
• Two children were kidnapped and killed in Yobe state on 23 November 2011 to punish their father for being “disloyal to Islam” by converting to Christianity.
• A woman and a baby were shot dead along with four other Christians on a bus at a petrol station in Potiskum, Yobe state, on 11 January 2012.
• Grenades were hurled into the homes of Christians in Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi state, as they slept on 22 January 2012. Nine were killed in total, some in the explosions, while others were gunned down as they tried to escape.
• Around 40 people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a church in Kaduna during Easter celebrations on 8 April 2012.  
• A massacre at a church in Kano on 29 April 2012 left 16 Christians dead. The attackers bombed the church before shooting fleeing worshippers in the back.  

Barely a week goes by without a report of another anti-Christian attack in Nigeria, while the security forces seem at a loss as to how to to bring Boko Haram under control.