Published: 15:30 GMT Daylight Time - Wednesday 23 April 2014
Over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped from Christian town in Nigeria
Country/Region: Africa, Nigeria
At least 230 girls were kidnapped by Islamist group Boko Haram in a night-time raid on a boarding school in a predominantly Christian town in Northern Nigeria.
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Christian girls and women are being targeted for kidnapping by Boko Haram |
Militants stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno state, on the night of 14 April while the girls were asleep in their dormitories. The Islamists herded the girls onto trucks and took them away. They set the school ablaze and looted and torched houses and shops.
The Rev. Titus Pona, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Borno state, told Morning Star News that most of the kidnapped girls were members of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria. He said:
We have been praying for the kidnapped girls and hoping that God will intervene. So far, God has answered our prayers as 20 of the girls have escaped from their captors and have returned safely.
Around another 20 have since managed to escape. Desperate parents and volunteers from Chibok launched a search for the missing girls but had to return home after being warned about the dangers of moving into Boko Haram strongholds in the Sambisa forest.
The number of girls taken has been revised by officials several times. The Nigerian military on 16 April claimed to have rescued all but eight of the girls, but this has been refuted by the school principal and parents. The latter said on Monday (21 April) that 234 of their daughters were still missing.
Boko Haram has been abducting Christian girls and women for some time as part of its battle to establish an Islamic state in Northern Nigeria.
After issuing a general threat to Christian women in March 2012, the group, in a video released in March this year, specifically threatened to target schoolgirls.
Girls and women kidnapped by Boko Haram are often forced to convert to Islam and marry militants; they are subjected to physical and sexual violence.
As well as kidnappings, the Islamists are continuing to launch deadly attacks against Christians and other targets. Boko Haram related violence has claimed 1,500 lives in the first three months of 2014 alone.
Christians are also being attacked by Fulani Muslim herdsmen. Barnabas Aid this week received a harrowing report from a senior church leader in Kaduna state, where Christians in the Manchok area have been repeatedly targeted over the past two years.
In a recent incident, on 14 March, around 600 Fulani gunmen divided into four groups and descended on Bondong, Rafin Gora, Hayin Birom and Ung Kura. They attacked the Christian residents, killing over 121 of them, around half of whom were children.
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