Last week Prayer-Alert reported the release of 234 women and girls from Boko Haram. The total number of hostages released in the past few days has risen to 700. This marks a revival of fortunes for Nigeria’s military. More hostages have been freed in the past few weeks than in the past six years of the Boko Haram insurgency. This is due to the military receiving vital equipment and more support from the Nigerian people, who gave valuable information to track down the insurgents. Getting the Nigerian people on the side of the army would have been unlikely a few months back, given the military's appalling human rights record in the north east. The imminent arrival of Muhammadu Buhari as President has piloted a new sense of confidence. The former military strongman has vowed to crush the Muslim extremists. As the assault on Boko Haram’s stronghold continues it is hoped more victims will be released.

Less than 3% of Nepal’s population is Christian. After years of intense persecution, Nepalese Christians now have freedom to meet, though proselytising remains illegal. Baptist Global Response reported that local churches were pooling limited resources to become community hubs for disaster relief. They offer shelter, clean water, and food to neighbours who are now sleeping in the streets. Rescue Network Nepal, an indigenous Christian organisation, have activated volunteers whom they had already trained through local churches to provide first aid and trauma care in rural regions. Samaritan’s Purse and Convoy of Hope are dispatching teams and supplies to the region and offer relief in conjunction with church networks in local communities. Nepal Christian Relief Services and Tearfund, along with other Christian agencies, have workers currently hard at work distributing food and other items to affected families. 

NGOs are warning that criminal networks using the cover of rescue efforts are targeting rural communities that were devastated by the earthquake. Each year an estimated 15,000 girls and young women from poor communities are trafficked and forced into sex work. Now tens of thousands more young women from earthquake-devastated regions are in danger of being abducted and forced into the trade to supply a network of brothels across south Asia. The UN and local NGOs said that this is the time when the brokers go in the name of relief to kidnap or lure women away, and they are making people aware that someone might come with that aim. ‘We are getting reports of individuals pretending to look for people and rescue them.’  Trafficked sex slaves from Nepal are taken to South Korea, South Africa and India. The majority go to Indian brothels, where tens of thousands work in appalling conditions.

Since Qaddafi’s downfall Libya’s newly formed, militia-run police force terrorises religious minorities, officials and workers who previously served under Qaddafi. This has prevented tens of thousands of experienced government workers from providing millions of Libyans access to any form of government programme or service. Currently, daily life for Libyans is both dysfunctional and untenable. Libya has tumbled to the point of being a ‘failed state’ with no security force to protect its people. The country’s perpetual state of civil war has brought about desperate living conditions, food scarcities, a collapsed economy and groups of armed militias roaming the streets carrying out acts of terror against the people. Tens of thousands of working people are fleeing the country using any means at their disposal. For facts concerning Libya’s people smugglers who sell refugees hopes of a better life go to: