Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram launched a major offensive against churches in northern Nigeria Sunday, leaving dozens dead and injured.
Witnesses say the terrorists descended during worship services and set fire to church buildings with Christians inside. When the Christians attempted to flee the flames, the terrorists would gun them down with automatic weapons.
A vigilante group in the village of Kwada said that at least 30 victims have been confirmed dead and the death toll was likely to rise significantly because a number of people fled into the bush and were chased by armed terrorists.
At least four churches were burned to the ground during the assault, including one church that was started by American missionaries in the 1920s. In addition to the churches, the terrorists set fire to the homes of Christians in at least two communities.
Officials say the terrorists also attacked the village of Kautikari to continue their assault but they have not been able to get a count of the dead and wounded.
The continuing failure of the Nigerian government to rescue almost 300 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram is being highlighted by a new round of kidnappings.
Members of the Islamic extremist group have taken at least 60 women and children from villages in Borno state in the northern part of the country. The BBC reports that in addition to the kidnappings, the Islamists slaughtered dozens of people as they raided the villages.
Boko Haram issued another call for the release of fighters in exchange for the girls. The government is still rejecting the trade.
The Senator for the region, Ali Ndume, told the BBC that he obtained reports that the terrorists also captured some young men that they plan to force into service for the Islamists.
A group of Middle Eastern activists is speaking out about girls in Egypt being forced into marriage with Islamic men and ordered to convert from Christianity.
The group is pointing out while the world is enraged over 270 Christian girls kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, over 550 Christian girls in Egypt have been kidnapped or forced into marriages with Islamic men over the last three years.
The Association of Victims of Abduction and Forced Disappearance reported that in addition to the marriages, the girls who are Coptic Christians have crosses tattooed on their body burned off with acid.
“Before the revolution there would be five or six girls disappear each month,” AVAFD founder Ebram Louis told the Christian Post. “Now the average is 15 [each month].”
The AVAFD says that the Islamists in government and on police forces are complicit in the kidnapping, rape and forced conversions of the girls. They cite the case of Nadia Makram, kidnapped at age 14 in 2011. Her parents knew the 48-year-old Muslim man who took their daughter and went to police who said they wouldn’t do anything to rescue the kidnapped girl.
AVAFD says if police do get involved, they meet with the girls when they are surrounded by the Muslims who kidnapped her and tell her what to say to the police.
Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has made another daring daylight kidnapping of young women from northern Nigeria.
The Islamist gunmen descended on a nomadic village just outside of Chibok, the town where the terrorists kidnapped 300 schoolgirls and young women on April 15th. The gunmen pulled a truck into the center of the village, forced women to enter the truck at gunpoint and then fled before local militia could respond to the incident.
“We tried to go after them when the news got to us about three hours later,” Alhaji Tar, leader of one of the vigilante groups, told Fox News. “The vehicles we have could not go far and the report came to us a little late.”
The attack was the only successful one by Boko Haram as Nigerian defense forces stopped raids on villages in Borno and Adamawa states. More than 50 terrorists were reported killed by the military during the raids.
The military also announced the terrorists are trapped in the area around a lake with the 272 girls kidnapped in April but there is no way to attack them without the terrorists being able to see the attack coming form a distance.
A group of Nigerian Christians are dead after Islamic terrorists impersonated pastors.
Members of Boko Haram entered the city Maidugur proclaiming they wanted to speak to the community about the “righteous path of God.” Villagers say the men said they came to preach and once the crowd was gathered, pulled out weapons and began to fire point-blank at the Christians who came to worship.
More gunmen then stormed into the village, destroying mobile phone towers to try and keep news of the attack from spreading and destroyed several houses belonging to the murder victims. They also burned down a Roman Catholic Church and government office.
The attack on Maidugur came after an assault early last week where Boko Haram impersonated government troops and said they were protecting villages in Borno province before launching assaults.
Nigeria, now considered the largest economy in Africa, has rejected offers of help from the United States and other western nations in stopping Boko Haram beyond searching for 200 kidnapped girls.
A Nigerian military court has found ten generals guilty in providing arms and intelligence to the Islamic terror group Boko Haram.
In addition to the generals, several other senior military officers were found to be telling the Islamic terror groups the sizes of military units and troop locations, allowing the terrorists to attack in places the government security forces were weak.
Boko Haram is currently the subject of an international manhunt because of almost 300 young girls kidnapped from a school. The Islamic terrorists are threatening to force the girls into marriages to Islamic men and to sell them as slaves if they refuse to convert to Islam.
The government’s prosecutors say that some of the military leaders convicted yesterday had been undermining the efforts to find the missing girls along with working to destroy the effectiveness of the government’s offensive against the Islamists.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said he believed there were members of the military and possibly members of the Cabinet who were supporters of and members of Boko Haram. Jonathan claims the government has now located the kidnapped girls but has yet to find a way to save them without endangering their lives.
While the international community has been focused on a group of almost 300 girls kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, the same terrorists have quietly been conducting a killing spree of Christians in northern Nigeria.
The terrorists killed at least 29 Christians in the last two days in assaults on both churches and Christian communities in Borno state.
At least 21 people are dead from an attack on the Church of Christ in Nations church in Gwoza. The church was in the middle of a worship service when the Islamic terrorist invaded and began to systematically gun down anyone inside the sanctuary. Rev. Moses Thliza of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria in the same village said that several dozen were injured and the death toll is likely to rise.
The next day, the terrorists attacked several Christian villages. At least six churches were burned to the ground, eight Christians killed and several dozen seriously wounded. One Christian leader said the number of burned homes of Christians could not be counted.
The unrest among the Nigerian people regarding the government’s inability to rescue 300 kidnapped girls from the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram is starting to have nationwide impact.
The National Union of Teachers announced their members will not show up to teach as a general strike against the government’s failure to rescue the Christian girls kidnapped from a school April 14th.
“All schools nationwide shall be closed as the day will be our day of protest against the abduction of the Chibok female students and the heartless murder of the 173 teachers,” Union President Michael Olukoya told reporters.
The teachers say that the kidnapping of the girls and the government’s apparent weakness in stopping the Islamic terror attacks on Christians puts all youth in the country in danger.
“Children’s lives are being threatened, kidnapping all over the place, stealing, maiming of life, that’s what we are saying should stop,” said teacher Ojo Veronica.
Nigerian citizens in the northern part of the country have now reportedly begin taking up arms and forming militias for the sole purpose of seeking the kidnapped girls. One group attacked a Boko Haram encampment and killed 10 terrorists.
The leader of the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram has released a new video where he declares his group is at war with Christians throughout the world.
“We know what is happening in this world,” Abubakar Shekau says, “It is a Jihad war against Christians and Christianity. It is a war against western education, democracy and constitution.”
Shekau goes on to say that even with the kidnapping of the girls and spending the last few years launching terrorist attacks on towns throughout the northern part of the country, the Jihad has not yet begun in Nigeria.
“We have not started,” he says, “next time we are going inside [Nigeria’s capital] Abuja. We are going to refinery and town of Christians.”
He goes on to say the Koran tells him that he needs to kill anyone who is Christian or associated with Christians because that is Allah’s will.
The group, whose name means “Western Education is sinful”, is the subject of a manhunt by Nigerian military officials and western air forces after their kidnapping of over 300 Christian girls from a school and village last month.
A Nigerian girl from the same village as 270 of the girls kidnapped by Islamic extremists Boko Haram is speaking out about her family being slaughtered by the terrorists.
Deborah Peters delivered a talk at the Hudson Institute where she talked about her brother and father getting gunned down by the terrorists. Peters said that she was at home with her brother on December 21, 2011 when gunfire broke out in her hometown of Chibok.
“So my brother called my dad and told him not to come home because they are fighting and my father told him to just forget about it,” Peters said.
Her father came home and a few hours later the terrorists stormed into their home and demanded her father, a Christian pastor whose church had been destroyed earlier in the year by the Islamists, renounce his faith in Christ.
“He told him that he would rather die than to go to hellfire,” Peters said. The terrorists then shot him three times in the chest while she watched. Then they turned their guns on her younger brother because they said he would grow up to be a pastor if they didn’t kill him.
Emmanuel Ogebe, an international human rights lawyer, attended the event and said that what we’re seeing now has been happening for years.
“What is happening now is this is persecution on steroids. Northern Nigerian Christians are used to being killed a couple of times a year,” Ogebe said. “But for terrorists to come out and abduct 300 kids, this is where Northern Nigerian Christians are saying ‘okay, we didn’t sign up for this.'”
