Christian Persecution – Africa

Kidnappers in Nigeria have killed at least 35 people they abducted from a village in the country’s northwestern Zamfara state despite ransoms being paid for their release, officials said Tuesday.

Details have emerged about a massacre of at least 32 people, including women, children, and a three-month-old baby, in what Christians called “a brutal attack” on the mainly Christian village of Jebu, in Nigeria’s northern Plateau State.

Residents in Nigeria’s Plateau State are reeling from attacks by Islamist hardliners that killed dozens of civilians, most of them predominantly Christian farmers, several sources said.

Evangelical Christians in Nigeria’s northwestern Kaduna state were grieving Wednesday after mainly Muslim Fulani herdsmen reportedly killed five believers and injured three others during a church gathering.

Nigeria’s former president Muhammadu Buhari, who captured global headlines as the first opposition leader to unseat an incumbent at the ballot box, has died in London at the age of 82, after a long illness, officials confirmed Sunday.

Baptist Christians in northern Nigeria are mourning the death of their pastor who was among two killed during a worship service, while several Christians were murdered or abducted elsewhere, Worthy News learned Saturday.

At least 70 people were killed and many others injured in north-central Nigeria as suspected Muslim “bandits” ambushed vigilantes in charge of protecting residents, Christians, and other sources said Tuesday.

A Nigerian Christian farmer and evangelist fears Muslim kidnappers have killed his Christian neighbor after he was abducted in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, late Friday.

Nigeria’s government was under pressure Sunday to end massacres in the country’s central Benue state after at least 100 people, many believed to be Christians, were reportedly killed there over the weekend.

Christian farmer and evangelist Paul Jongas tells Worthy News that his Christian neighbor has been kidnapped in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and that he, too, fears for his life.

Dozens of Christians have been killed in Nigeria in recent days, several sources said after Worthy News already reported the killing of more than 100 Christians by Islamists since May 24 in the troubled African nation.

More than 100 Christians, including children, pastors, farmers, and “even people attending a funeral,” have been killed and around 5,000 displaced in attacks by Islamist militants in Nigeria, a Christian advocacy group confirmed Tuesday.

Fulani herdsmen killed at least 42 Christians in coordinated attacks on three villages in Taraba state, northeast Nigeria, in the early hours of Saturday, May 24, according to Morning Star News.

In a devastating escalation of violence against Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, Fulani ethnic militias launched coordinated attacks on May 14 that left eight Christians dead and over 740 acres of farmland destroyed in Plateau State.