northern Nigeria, after dozens of believers were reportedly massacred last month amid fears of renewed wide spread religious violence in the troubled African nation, BosNewsLife monitored Saturday March 5.
The Christian news agency Compass Direct, which has contacts with persecuted believers in the region, said at least 3,000 Christian villagers have taken refuge in the village of Myolope in Nigeria’s northern Taraba state because 36 people of their community were killed by Muslim extremists last month.
They were allegedly attacked on Friday February 4 in Demsa village in neighboring Adamawa state, but details of the alleged killings are only now beginning to emerge in Nigeria, known for its many remote areas.
News of spreading religious violence comes just days after Christian communities in northeastern Nigeria braced for new attacks by groups of Islamic radicals, who reportedly call themselves the Taleban, BosNewsLife established.
A pastor in one of the targeted villages, Limankara, told the Voice of America (VOA) network that there is also concern about an increase in abductions. Pastor Zachary Jwanse said the family of a Christian elder, known as a bulema, was among those victimized.
SEXUAL ABUSE
"A Christian bulema, he has a daughter, they came and took her, impregnated her, Islamicized her, and when the bulema went, they were challenging him," said Pastor Jwanse. "You see, so all the time, all the time, this problem has been here and we don’t know when this problem will be solved. They have gone to the extreme…We don’t think we will experience peace with them."
He said Muslim militants have regrouped in nearby hills and "set up training camps in border areas," as part of efforts "to convert everyone to Islam." Armed Christian groups have reportedly set up roadblocks in the area.
Journalist Gilbert da Costa, who recently visited the area, told VOA the threat of renewed attacks seems real. "Some of the people actually told me that they’ve intercepted some people they suspected to be the Taleban and so there is a strong sense in the village that the Taleban shadow still hangs over the village and even the entire state," he said.
SHARIA LAW
A dozen Nigerian states have implemented Islamic Sharia law, but the radicals have been quoted as saying it is not being well enforced. Church leaders have urged the government to improve the rights of religious communities by implementing urgent political changes, African media reported.
"Our nation has gone through many critical moments, our present days are no less critical, especially viewed in the perspective of our recent history," the Internet website allAfrica.com quoted Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN).
"Events since 2003 have unfortunately compromised, if not dashed, our hopes as we witnessed helplessly an electoral process that in many places was worse than 1999," he reportedly told President Olusegun Obasanjo and other officials last month.
"TRAGIC RESULTS"
"The tragic results is that there are now many people occupying high elective positions of responsibility in our country without the mandate of the people. It is no wonder that such people have neither the political credential nor even the moral will to lead the people and govern the nation," he reportedly said.
That sentiment was echoed by Muslim Alhaji Saleh Jatau, who reportedly confirmed the February 4 massacre of Christians. "I am appealing that the government should act quickly to end this conflict. We have lived in peace with Christians, but now some of us [Muslims] have decided to cause problems between us," Jatau told Compass Direct.
"I have lived with Christians in our village for 51 years, and I have never witnessed any crisis where people are being killed without caution as it happened that day. Most of the people here [in the camp] have vowed never to return to the village until the government finds a lasting solution to the problems," he was quoted as saying
STATE OF ANARCHY
The reported anti-Christian violence has also added to concern over a state of anarchy in several areas of impoverished Nigeria, including in the southwestern Nigerian state of Oyo, where clashes between licensed miners and villagers struggling to survive left at least 50 people dead since Wednesday, March 2, news reports said.
Taraba state’s governor, Rev. Jolly Nyame, reportedly expressed sadness over the attacks and said the country could progress only through peaceful coexistence.
"No community can move forward while crisis takes the center stage. It is only peace that can usher in development in the country," he was quoted as telling the refugees when he visited them on February 7. "Only tolerance and forgiveness can bring about peaceful co-existence among people of different religious backgrounds."
Last month’s attack on Demsa village by Muslim militants is the second in Adamawa state. The town of Numan, also in Adamawa, has been under siege since religious violence erupted there two years ago over the killing of Pastor Esther Ethan Jinkai. Tensions increased there in January when another Christian woman was reportedly killed by Nigerian peacekeepers. Christians make up 40 percent of the country’s over 137 million people, according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
(With: BosNewsLife News Center, Compass Direct, Reports from Africa, BosNewsLife Research).
