Paul Robinson, CEO of UK-based Release International, says: “This appalling failure by Nigeria to protect its Christian citizens has to stop. The international community must compel Nigeria to effective action to protect its vulnerable Christian minority in the North against attacks from extremists.”
However, the persecution of Nigerian Christians has been going on for years, with little or no response from the international community. The Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, continues to implore the United Nations and the governments of all nations that are committed to human rights and religious freedom to make the plight of Nigeria’s Christians and all the persecuted Christians of the world a top priority.
For previous coverage of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria from ChristianPersecution.com, see here.
“Nigeria: 140 more Christian children kidnapped,” ICN, July 6, 2021:
As gunmen kidnap more than 140 Christian schoolchildren in Nigeria, Release International is again urging the international community to call Nigeria to account over its appalling failure to protect its Christian minority in the north.
The gunmen, suspected to be Fulani militants, overcame security guards and forced their way into Bethel Baptist boarding school in Kaduna at 2am on Monday morning. They kidnapped most of 180 students who attend the school. A few managed to escape, according to reports.
The exact numbers of high school students abducted is still unknown. Estimates vary from 140 to 164.
News agency AFP says this is the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state since December. It’s estimated that more Christians are kidnapped in Nigeria than any other country in the world….
“Our hearts and prayers go out for these kidnapped children and their parents. God knows what they are going through,” says Paul Robinson, CEO of UK-based Release International, which supports persecuted Christians around the world.
“This appalling failure by Nigeria to protect its Christian citizens has to stop. The international community must compel Nigeria to effective action to protect its vulnerable Christian minority in the North against attacks from extremists.”
The Nigerian government has blamed bandits for the growing numbers of kidnappings and attacks against its Christian population. But international observers recognise a religious dimension behind many of the attacks.
The most likely perpetrators are Fulani herdsmen, whose grazing land is being eroded by desertification.
“If so, by attacking Christians, they are following in the footsteps of Islamist militants, including Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province),” says Paul Robinsonl [sic].
The declared aim of Boko Haram is to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state. It has ordered its supporters to kill Christians….
That religious dimension is reiterated in the 2021 Annual Report of the USCIRF. It notes that Boko Haram fighters beheaded the local chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Adamawa State because he refused to renounce his faith, while ISWAP fighters executed five aid workers as a warning to “all those being used by infidels to convert Muslims to Christianity”.
And in a separate report, the US State Department cites Nigerian Minister of Culture Lai Mohammed, who declared Boko Haram and ISIS fighters ‘have started targeting Christians and Christian villages… to trigger a religious war and throw the nation into chaos.’
The US State Department also quotes the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Samson Ayokunle, who warns Fulani militants and others share ‘a goal to Islamise Nigeria’….
