Barnabas Aid - International Headquarters River Street, Pewsey, Wilthire. Phone: +44 1672 565030 Latitude: 51 deg 23 min 18 sec N Longitude: 1 deg 45 min 48 sec W .
Christians flee Northern Nigeria as dead...

Email:

Christians flee Northern Nigeria as deadly attacks continue

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

Christians flee Northern Nigeria as deadly attacks continue

Country/Region: Africa, Nigeria

They shot my father dead, and then came for the rest of the family. Nigerian Christian Hyeladi Adurkwa

Hundreds of Christians are leaving their homes in Northern Nigeria as militant Islamist group Boko Haram continues to wage its deadly campaign against them.

Nigeria-crowd-4X3.jpg
Christians were given an ultimatum to leave Northern Nigeria

Four Christian men were reportedly shot dead in Potiskum town, Yobe State, last Wednesday (11 January) as they were travelling southwards to join their families, who had already migrated to escape the violence.

Entire lorry-loads of Christians are reported to be leaving Yobe following Boko Haram’s ultimatum for Christians to quit the North and subsequent attacks against them. One Christian said that he is helping over 200 Christian families with relocation.

On 10 January, eight men and a woman – all thought to have been Christians – were gunned down in Potiskum. In the same town on the previous day, two Christians escaped unharmed by falling to the ground and playing dead as gunmen on a motorbike shot at them.

Christians are also leaving Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s spiritual homeland in Borno State, following attacks against them there. On the day that the group’s three-day ultimatum for Christians to leave the North expired, 4 January, a Christian family was attacked in their home in Maiduguri.

Ousman Adurkwa (65) was shot dead along with his son Moussa. The gunmen fired at his other son Hyeladi, but the young man’s mother took the bullet. She survived the attack.

The family’s neighbour Joseph Adams (30) said:

We are going through a very difficult time because of Boko Haram. Two weeks ago a nearby church was also burned down, and nine other Christians have been killed. Now all the houses around me are emptying.

As the anti-Christian violence continues unabated, there are growing concerns about Boko Haram’s increasing sophistication and strength. In the Sunday Telegraph on 8 January, Colin Freeman described “the alarming evolution of the sect, which has progressed from using machetes and poisoned arrows in its infancy to sophisticated carbombs and Mumbai-style mass gun attacks today”. He continued:

It is believed to be morphing into a new pan-African jihadist franchise, forging links with both al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, which operates in the vast Sahara region north of Nigeria, and al-Shebab in Somalia.

Help us: Share this article

Email:

Christians flee Northern Nigeria as deadly attacks continue

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

christian, persecution, charity, church, persecuted, sookhdeo, Islam

Other articles

Follow Barnabas

or

receive news & appeal emails as they are published

From Twitter

From Twitter_icon
  • Kazakh pastor held on charge of harming health http://bit.ly/14ZUO0i 2 hours ago

  • Editorial: Nigeria needs help to defeat Boko Haram http://bit.ly/16bBvG1 17 hours ago

  • Obama called to act against countries that violate religious freedom http://bit.ly/197HeeB 17 hours ago

  • Tanzanian pastor in intensive care after being attacked with machetes at his home. http://ow.ly/mbgPV 21 hours ago

  • Four converts to Christianity jailed, two others given suspended sentence, amid Iranian presidential elections http://ow.ly/m6BPh Mon, Jun 2013 17:04

Daily prayer

Daily prayer_icon
  • Two Christian boys in Egypt were found guilty on 4 February of “showing contempt for Islam” by allegedly desecrating pages of the Quran. Nabil Farag and Mina Risq were aged just 9 and 10 at the time of the alleged incident on 30 September 2012. They were accused of tearing up and urinating on pages of the Quran in the village of Ezbat Marco. The youngsters were convicted despite evidence being produced in court that they are illiterate and therefore not able to identify Quranic text. Give thanks that Nabil and Mina were not punished; they were only remanded to the custody of their parents. Pray that the boys will suffer no further repercussions from this incident; they may be vulnerable to attack or subject to discrimination. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed 13 hours ago

  • In another chilling sign of Egypt’s move towards becoming an Islamic state, it was announced in March that a religious police force had been established to uphold Muslim morals. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice shares its name with the notorious religious police of Saudi Arabia. For some months previously, vigilante Salafist gangs had been operating as self-appointed enforcers of morals, raiding shops and harassing staff and customers. The Christian community is concerned that it may now be subjected to the demands of sharia law. Pray that this will not happen and that the Islamisation of Egyptian society will be checked and then reversed. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Wed, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Christian girls in Egypt are extremely vulnerable to being kidnapped by Salafists who forcibly convert them to Islam and marry them to Muslim men against their will; over 500 have been victims of this heartless campaign since the revolution of January 2011. The Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearance (AVAED), an Egyptian Christian organisation, says that the authorities collude with the Salafists. Give thanks for the safe return of Agape Essam Girgis (13), who was abducted from el-Ameriya on 23 December 2012. Sadly, most cases do not have a happy ending. Pray that the Lord will comfort those families whose daughters are still missing and intervene mightily to deliver the Christian girls from the hands of their captors. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Tue, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Pray for our brothers and sisters in North Africa living in the shadow of militant Islamism. Following the French intervention against Islamist groups who had taken over large parts of Mali, militants attacked a gas facility in Algeria in January and killed 37 people. An Algerian employee who managed to escape said, “We were told that because we were Muslim we would not be killed, and it was only the Christians they were after.” The Islamists associate Christianity with the West, so Christian targets and individuals as well as Western ones are especially vulnerable to attack. Ask that the Lord will protect Christians in the region against violence and the oppressive grip of sharia law. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Mon, Jun 2013 00:00

  • “I had just cooked my last meal, and there was no food in the house, nor money, nor any other way of obtaining grain. Thank the Lord for this aid, which has saved me and my children.” Bâh Kamaté, a Christian widow with six children in Mali, was “completely overwhelmed” when her pastor told her that she was going to receive corn and rice funded by Barnabas. Thousands of Christians fled the north of the country after the Islamist takeover in 2012, and their plight was worsened by food shortages resulting from drought. But praise God that Barnabas has helped to supply food for more than 5,100 Christians, as well as meeting other needs. Pray for His continuing provision for His people as Mali continues to face an uncertain future. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sun, Jun 2013 00:00

© Barnabas Aid 1997 - 2013 All rights reserved.
Barnabas Aid is a registered trade mark