In what is being noted as a systematic direct war against Christianity in Nigeria, Pastors, Christian Leaders and Seminarians are either being kidnapped or killed every week.
Nigeria has fully become a killing field of defenseless civilians, especially Christians.
Christians in Nigeria have been the target of many attacks by the vicious Boko Haram jihadist Islamist terrorists, herdsmen attacks and many other kidnappings in recent times.
The past week was characterized by great bloodletting in Nigeria with the killing of over 260 people during several attacks, mostly in the Northern region. The figure is the highest death toll within such a period in recent times, Humangle reported.
Of all those who were killed, 184 were civilians and two were security operatives. Twenty were members of the Boko Haram terror group, 24 were sectarian actors, seven were robbers, and four others were part of armed groups.
According to the Nigeria Security Tracker, which catalogs violent incidents driven by political and socio-economic grievances, Borno State, with 114 deaths, recorded the highest number of fatalities. It is followed by Katsina State where 75 people were killed.
Twenty-four people died in Adamawa, nine died in Kogi, seven died in Benue, five died in Bayelsa, and one died each in Ebonyi, Osun and Taraba states.
Believers Portal earlier reported last week, at least 81 people were killed during an attack on communities in Gubio Local Government Area, Borno state, by suspected members of Boko Haram as confirmed by the Borno State government. Thirteen residents were injured and seven others, including one village head, were abducted.
According to the government’s statement, a male witness told the governor that the armed men came to the village at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
“They gathered us and said they wanted to deliver a religious sermon to us,” the unnamed resident was quoted as saying in the statement. “They asked us to submit whatever arm we had. Some villagers gave up their dane guns, bow and arrows.”
The survivor said the militants then began shooting “at will.”
“Even children and women were not spared, many were shot at close range,” the man said. “Many started running.”
The deaths, caused by violent events between Monday, June 8, 2020, and Saturday, June 13, 2020, were unusually high. In the previous one week period, HumAngle had reported, 183 Nigerians lost their lives due to insecurity. This, in other words, means the fatalities increased by 31.7 percent.
Between Monday, May 25, and Sunday, May 31, the number of deaths was smaller at 149.
Nigeria ranks as the 12th worst country in the world on Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians are most severely persecuted. Nigeria was in December, listed in the U.S. State Department’s special watch list of countries that tolerate or engage in severe violations of religious freedom due to the “lack of effective government response and the lack of judicial cases being brought forward in that country”.