News

Nigeria: Aid Worker Says Boko Haram Killed Schoolgirl for Refusing to Renounce Christ

August 1, 2019

16-year-old Leah Sharibu was abducted by Boko Haram along with over 100 other schoolgirls; reportedly, all the others were released but she was held because she refused to renounce Christ and convert to Islam. If this report of her death proves to be true, Leah Sharibu in her brief life demonstrated the unconquerable faith and indomitable courage of the holy martyrs. Please pray that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will abundantly bless her witness by turning the hearts of her captors, so that they will be moved to embrace the faith for which she gave her life.

“Aid Worker: Boko Haram Killed Schoolgirl for Refusing to Renounce Christ,” by Edwin Mora, Breitbart, July 25, 2019:

Jihadis from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked Boko Haram killed a 16-year-old Christian schoolgirl in captivity for refusing to renounce her Christian faith and convert to Islam, a kidnapped aid worker claimed in a video released this week.

Grace Taku, an aid worker from the non-governmental organization (NGO) Action Against Hunger (ACF), blamed the death of the schoolgirl — Leah Sharibu — and another captive identified only as “Alice” on the Nigerian government’s failure to fight for her release. Taku herself was kidnapped along with five other ACF workers on July 18.

She also held the Nigerian government responsible for the deaths of two Red Cross workers — identified only as Hauwa and Kabura — and a different aid worker, Alice.

Taku’s comments were captured on a nearly three-minute video, which reportedly disseminated online Wednesday by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a breakaway Boko Haram faction.

The footage purportedly shows Taku imploring her employer, the prominent Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and the Nigerian government to “do something” to secure their release and prevent them from suffering the same lethal fate as some of the captives, according to a transcript of the video carried by Nigeria’s Premium Times.

After highlighting the death of the two Red Cross workers, Taku beseeched, fighting to hold back her tears:

Do something to see that we are released. … I am begging on behalf of all of us here that please Nigeria should not allow such [death] to happen to us. And it also happen again with Leah [Sharibu] and Alice – because Nigeria could not do anything about them they were not released; they were also killed.

Some analysts have questioned the claim that Sharibu is dead, urging caution about jumping to conclusions….

In audio that surfaced in August 2018, Sharibu supplicated the Nigerian government, “Treat me with compassion, I am calling on the government, particularly, the President to pity me and get me out of this serious situation.”…