In just two months, from August to October, nearly 200 Christian churches were destroyed by the Islamic organization Boko Haram and its Muslim allies after their capture of towns and villages in the north-eastern states of Borno and Adamawa. In the words of Reverend Gideon Obasogie, the director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese in Borno State: “The group’s seizure of territory in both states has seen
185 churches torched and over 190,000 people displaced by their insurgency.”
Obasogie added that Boko Haram’s “ransacking and torching” of churches was “sad, heart-aching and potentially dangerous to the territorial integrity and common good of Nigeria…. Our priests are displaced, while citizens… are counting their losses and regrets as they have been reduced to the status of Internally Displaced Persons [IDP]. Where is the freedom?… Life is really terribly difficult.”
In
2011, hundreds of Christians were killed and 430 churches destroyed or damaged in Nigeria by Boko Haram. In
2012, 900 Christians were slaughtered and an unknown number of churches destroyed. In
2013, 612 Christians were slaughtered and approximately 300 churches destroyed.
This suggests that in the last four years alone, approximately 1,000 Christian churches have been destroyed by Boko Haram and its Muslim sympathizers in a nation that is approximately half Christian half Muslim.
A typical church attack in Nigeria that occurred in October was reported as follows: “Armed Muslim extremists stormed two churches in Taraba state on Sunday (Oct. 19) and killed 31 people as they worshipped… Two pastors, one pastor’s son, and 28 other Christians were slain in the attacks.” According to the Rev. Caleb Ahema, president of the Christian Reformed Church of Christ in Nigeria, “The attack on Christians in Taraba state is
a planned genocide against Christians by Islamic insurgents who have invaded the southern part of the state, inhabited mostly by Christians, since February.”
The experiences of Adamu, a 28-year-old Christian man who refused to abjure Christianity for Islam, appeared in October. One day while working on his farm, a Boko Haram member came to him:
He told me to convert to Islam and join them in waging a jihad to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria. I told him that I will not renounce my Christian faith in order to embrace Islam. He left me there on my farm without saying anything again. [Two days later, five other Boko Haram members showed up.] They said their member told them that I refused to renounce being a Christian and wanted to know whether it is true that I refused to become a Muslim. [Adamu repeated his decision again.] They then told me that since I refused to recant, they would kill me…. They pinned me down and told me
they will make death painful and slow, as they are not prepared to waste their bullets on me. They also said they would not give me the honor of slaughtering me by cutting my neck from the front, because that is the way they slaughter their rams. They forced me down on my stomach and then proceeded to slaughter me by cutting my neck from the back. I was bleeding and went blank as the knife cut through my neck. It was pains I cannot explain to you. After cutting my neck, they left me bleeding…. It was only after I was taken to the hospital that I was told that the Boko Haram members who attacked me on the farm had gone to the village shortly after leaving me bleeding to death and had warned other Muslims that if any of them dares to rescue me, he would be killed. They sternly warned other Muslims in Musari, “We have butchered an infidel there on his farm. Be warned that if any of you Muslims dares to assist him, he is also an infidel and we shall make sure that he too is killed.’” [Days later, a fellow Christian snuck onto the farm and rescued the barely living man.]
Also in October, the Center for the Studies of Global Christianity in the United States concluded that
about
100,000 Christians die every year because of their religious beliefs, that is to say one every five minutes. In addition, in many Countries, many other religious minorities suffer violence and persecution. Just to name a few, in
Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia and Egypt [all nations with large Muslim numbers], the Christian elderly, women, men and their children live in conditions of total insecurity. They are driven from their homes; put in prison for blasphemy, and brutally killed during liturgical celebrations, churches are burned. Girls are kidnapped and forced to marry.
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Meanwhile, the Pope himself has tried to hide the ideology of the persecutors, when he said: “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” Even here, he notes that “Christians are persecuted.” He does not name the perpetrator. It is the great global force that no one dares name.
