Islamic Radicals Have Turned Nigeria Into a Christian Killing Field

CBN:

Last year more Christians were killed in Nigeria than any other country. The onslaught of bombings gave Nigeria the sad distinction of being the nation with the highest Christian death toll.

More than 900 Christians reportedly were killed in Nigeria in 2012, all victims of the Boko Haram group and other Islamic militants.

“They are so radical they don’t even spare Muslims. If Muslims are sympathetic to any cause at all…if they are sympathetic to the Christians cause, or the minorities cause, they are also termed as infidels,” Mark Lipdo, program coordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, said.

In 2013, radicals have killed more than 120 Nigerians, most of them Christians.

Gregory Lar, an international human rights attorney, said, “It is happening at this time because it appears there is a new resurgence, a new Islamic awareness in the need to propagate their religion.”

The new wave of violence has caused various groups in Southern Nigeria to take up arms. They are determined to protect Christians.

Attorney Emmanuel Ogebe warns the country may be on the brink of broader conflict.

More here.

 

Suicide Bomber Kills 8 At Nigerian Catholic Church

The Huffington Post:

* Christian youths kill at least two in reprisal killings

* Attacker drove jeep into packed Catholic church

* Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed such attacks in past     (Updates death toll)

By Garba Mohammed and Isaac Abrak

KADUNA, Oct 28 (Reuters) – A suicide bomber drove a jeep  packed with explosives into a Catholic church in northern  Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least eight people, injuring more  than 100 and triggering reprisal attacks that killed at least  two more, officials said.

The bomber drove right into the packed St Rita’s church in  the Malali area of Kaduna, a volatile ethnically and religiously  mixed city, in the morning, witnesses said.

A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency  (NEMA) Yushua Shuaib said eight people had been confirmed killed  and more than 100 injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist  sect Boko Haram has claimed similar attacks in the past and has  attacked several churches with bombs and guns as it intensified  its campaign against Christians in the past year.

“The heavy explosion also damaged so many buildings around  the area,” said survivor Linus Lighthouse.

A wall of the church was blasted open and scorched black,  with debris lying around. Police cordoned the area off.

Church attacks often target Nigeria’s middle belt, where its  largely Christian south and mostly Muslim north meet and where  sectarian tensions run high. Kaduna’s mixed population lies  along that faultline…

More here.

 

Google Nigeria

Had to post it. I’ve been getting way too many of those sorts of e-mails of late…

Nigeria Attack Targets Catholic Church

Despicable, evil. The BBC with the news:

Up to 11 people were killed after a Catholic church was targeted by suspected suicide car bombers in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos, officials say.

The car was apparently stopped before it could enter the church compound.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

A bombing at a Jos church two weeks ago killed three people and injured nearly 40. Islamist militants from Boko Haram said they carried out that attack.

Emergency officials said that four people – including the bomber – were immediately pronounced dead at St Finbar’s church in the Rayfield area of Jos.

Eyewitnesses said the suicide bombers refused to open the boot of their car when challenged at the church gates before detonating the explosives as worshippers approached them.

Pam Ayuba, a spokesperson for Plateau state where Jos is located, told Associated Press that the blast damaged the church’s roof, blew out its windows and destroyed a portion of the perimeter fence.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attack but said the government was “winning the war against the terrorists”.

He called on people “to remain patient and refrain from taking matters into their own hands through actions such as reprisal attacks”.

Reprisal attacks were reported on Muslims close to the church, but the number of casualties remains unclear.

Plateau state lies on the fault line between Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and Christian and animist south.

It has witnessed numerous inter-communal clashes in recent years and Islamist group Boko Haram has targeted several churches in Jos, the state capital.

AFP  has a photo of the destruction:

Prayers of Peace Turn to Fear of Attack in Nigeria

Nigeria (AP) — The aging Muslim spiritual leader of this northern Nigeria city, his eyes heavy with fatigue, leaned into a microphone Monday and whispered to God his wish for peace after the killing of more than 150 people in an attack by a radical Islamist sect.

On the street, however, smudged black graffiti written in charcoal gave a different message: “Boko Haram good.”

Though businesses reopened and traffic again filled the streets Monday of Nigeria’s second-largest city, people in Kano remained fearful the radical sect known as Boko Haram will attack again. And as soldiers and fearful police melted away from public view, it is unclear what security remains in this city of more than 9 million people.

“We are not safe at all,” warned resident Aminu Garba, 38. “We are not safe.”

The Nigerian Red Cross estimates more than 150 people died in Friday’s attack in Kano after at least two Boko Haram suicide bombers detonated explosive-laden cars. The attack hit police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria’s secret police, leaving corpses in the streets across the city, many wearing police or other security agency uniforms. The scale of the attack left President Goodluck Jonathan speechless as he toured what remained of a regional police headquarters Sunday.

Authorities say they still expect the death toll to rise…

Read on here.

Unacceptable.

 

Christians Given 3 Days to Leave North Nigeria or Face Death

Contact Online reports:

The militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, has issued a chilling warning to all Christians in northern Nigeria, giving them three days to leave or face further extensive attacks.

The violence in Nigeria by Boko Haram has led to a stiff ultimatum by the group, which has warned that it is ready to confront soldiers sent to engage them under a state of emergency declared by Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan.

“We will confront them squarely to protect our brothers,” said Abul Qaqa, spokesperson of Boko Haram, according to CNN.

He also called for Muslims living in southern Nigeria to come back to the north, citing evidence that they could be attacked.

President Jonathan declared a state of emergency Saturday in areas of Nigeria infected with violent Islamist insurgency. He shut down borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger in the northeast, according to Reuters. The state of emergency was announced in response to multiple violent attacks aimed at Christians in Nigeria, including a Christmas day attack that left 37 people dead and 57 wounded.

Read More..

Nigerian Christians Warn of Religious War

Another Sudan?

(Reuters) – Northern Nigerian Christians said on Tuesday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country.

The warning was made in a statement by the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization comprising various denominations including Catholics, Protestant and Pentecostal churches.

But a powerful Muslim traditional ruler, the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar said after meeting the Nigerian president in Abuja on Tuesday that it was not a conflict between Muslims and Christians or between Islam and Christianity.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia Islamic law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the blasts, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian churches.

Saidu Dogo, secretary general for the CAN in Nigeria’s 19 northern provinces called on Muslim leaders to control their faithful, saying Christians will be forced to defend themselves against further attacks.

“We fear that the situation may degenerate to a religious war and Nigeria may not be able to survive one. Once again, ‘enough is enough!’,” Dogo said.

The attacks risk reviving tit-for-tat sectarian violence between the mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, which has claimed thousands of lives in the past decade.

Dogo said the CAN was calling on all Christians to continue respecting the law but to defend themselves when needed.

“We shall henceforth in the midst of these provocations and wanton destruction of innocent lives and property be compelled to make our own efforts and arrangements to protect the lives of innocent Christians and peace-loving citizens of this country,” Dogo said.

CHRISTIANS VS MUSLIMS

The most deadly attack killed at least 27 people in the St Theresa Catholic church in Madalla, a town on the edge of the capital Abuja, and devastated surrounding buildings and cars as faithful poured out of the church after Christmas mass…

More here.

Nigeria: Churches Bombed on Christmas Day

AFP:

Nigeria — Bomb attacks on churches during Christmas services and a suicide blast killed at least 35 people in Nigeria on Sunday amid spiralling violence claimed by Islamists.

A purported spokesman for Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a bombing of the church outside the Nigerian capital and other violence which stoked fear and anger in Africa’s most populous nation.

Authorities have been seemingly unable to stop the attacks despite heavy-handed military crackdowns and claims of arrests of Boko Haram members.

One attack on Sunday saw a suicide bomber seek to ram a military convoy in front of a secret police building in the northeastern city of Damaturu, killing the bomber and three security agents.

The church blast outside the capital Abuja killed at least 30 people and degenerated into chaos after the explosion, with angry youths starting fires and threatening to attack a nearby police station.

Police shot into the air to disperse them and closed a major highway. Emergency officials called for more ambulances as rescuers sought to evacuate the dead and wounded, and calm later returned to the area.

In a swift response, a Vatican spokesman condemned that attack as an act of “blind hatred” which sought “to arouse and feed even more hatred and confusion.”

Britain condemned the “cowardly” attacks, with Foreign Secretary William Hague offering “condolences to the bereaved and injured.”

France, Italy and Germany also slammed the blasts.

Other attacks included a bomb blast outside an evangelical church in the central city of Jos, that killed a policeman, according to a spokesman for the governor.

Another explosion targeted a church in the northeastern area of Gadaka on Christmas Eve, but no one was reported killed, while two other blasts hit the northeastern city of Damaturu on Christmas Day, including the suicide bombing.

Emergency officials initially said the blast outside Abuja happened in the church, but later said it occurred near it, with the impact felt inside the church, which was also damaged.

Holes could be seen in the wall of the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla and the roof was badly damaged. What looked to be blood was splashed on the outside of the wall.

A number of cars were destroyed and badly damaged outside from what looked to be a powerful blast.

“What we counted, we church officials, was 30 that was dead here,” Francis Aniezue, a rector at the church, told AFP.

Father Christopher Barde told AFP that the explosion happened as the Christmas morning service was ending.

“As I reached the last entrance, some people met me for blessings and suddenly I heard a bomb blast. It was really terrible,” he said…

More on this terrible evil here.

Cathedral Bombed in Nigeria

Sickening!

The cathedral in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri was heavily damaged in a June 7 bombing.

“St. Patrick’s Cathedral was seriously damaged, windows and doors [were] destroyed, the whole building was shaken to its foundations by the violence of the explosion,” said Bishop Oliver Doeme.

Local authorities said that the Islamist group Boko Haram was responsible for the attack on the cathedral as well as recent attacks on a church, a school, and police stations.

Founded in Maiduguri in 2002, Boko Haram (the words mean “Western or non-Islamic education is a sin”) seeks the imposition of sharia in Nigeria. Boko Haram’s late founder, Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, told the BBC in 2009 that

there are prominent Islamic preachers who have seen and understood that the present Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam. Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain. Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it.

15% of the nation’s 146.5 million people are Catholic, according to Vatican statistics. An estimated 50% are Muslim, 25% are Protestant, and 10% retain indigenous beliefs. Maiduguri is heavily Muslim: the territory covered by the Diocese of Maiduguri is only 2% Catholic.

Soldier Guarding Church Killed

By suspected Islamists in Nigeria.

Yahoo.com reports:

Kano, Nigeria (AFP) – Suspected members of an Islamist sect blamed for a series of attacks in Nigeria’s north shot dead a soldier guarding a church on Sunday and stole his rifle, an army spokesman said.

Attackers on motorcycles killed the soldier in the city of Maiduguri, army spokesman Lieutenant Abubakar Abdullahi said.

They attacked as he was on his way to buy a charge card for his mobile phone, Abdullahi said.

“He was among an army patrol unit stationed around the church to protect it from attack following spates of armed attacks on churches in the city in recent weeks,” he added.

Three such attacks on Christmas Eve killed six people and destroyed one church.

Authorities also said they suspected the sect known as Boko Haram, which launched an uprising in 2009, had been behind recent armed robberies. Officials said the group wanted the money to buy weapons.

Last week, police said three people were killed in an robbery in Maiduguri by gunmen suspected to be sect members, according to police. Residents said five people were killed…