“Almost nobody knows what’s happening to the Christians of Nigeria—but even fewer care. Here’s why we should. In Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country, Christians don’t have time to worry about culture wars. They’re too busy facing a real one instigated by their Muslim neighbors and by a government that has studiously decided to look the other way. The scope of the violence is so vast as to be almost beyond belief, so let me first give you a snapshot of what’s happening on the ground.

Deborah, now 31 and living in a camp for the internally displaced, was captured by the Boko Haram terrorist group and held captive for a year and a half. The Islamists came to her village and slaughtered her husband and family before abducting her and “marrying” her off to a 20-year-old Muslim terrorist, who complained of her argumentativeness while raping and impregnating her. After Deborah was recaptured following an escape, she received 80 lashes as punishment. She told journalist Douglas Murray that she no longer fears death.

“What sort of death would I be running from?” Deborah asks. “I have already died once.”

You could repeat Deborah’s basic story countless times in Nigeria. Operation World estimates that Nigeria, which is an officially secular state with a Muslim president, is 51 percent Christian and 45 percent Muslim. Since 1999, the West African nation of about 158 million people has been convulsed by ongoing attempts at imposing Islamic law in eight northern, mostly Muslim states, as well as in four other states where Christians predominate or where the numbers are fairly even.

Things are particularly bad in the north right now. Unarmed Christian villages there are sitting ducks for Muslim Fulani tribesmen, who have been armed with weaponry provided by elements in the national military. According to The Spectator, it’s religiously motivated genocide, although outside agencies dismiss the violence as tit-for-tat.

“The locals daren’t collect the freshest bodies,” the magazine reports. “Some who tried earlier have already been killed, spotted by the waiting militia and hacked down or shot. The Fulani are watching everything closely from the surrounding mountains. Every week, their progress across the northern states of Plateau and Kaduna continues. Every week, more massacres—another village burned, its church razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, raped or chased away.”

Open Doors USA, as part of its annual World Watch List, says the killings have jumped by a whopping 62 percent in a year. And while Nigeria is No. 12 on the World Watch List of Christian persecution globally, it’s in the top 10 in terms of overall violence.

And yet it’s not all gloom and doom in Nigeria. As Tertullian reminded us, the blood of the martyrs is often the seed of the church. Operation World says the country now boasts a strong prayer movement, dynamic church growth, and a growing missionary movement, with more than 5,000 cross-cultural workers—many of them in Nigeria or in other African nations.

So while much of the world has forgotten about Nigeria’s persecuted Christians, surely those of us in the West cannot. They are our brothers and sisters, and they’re doing great things in the midst of severe trials. Let’s hold them up in powerful, prevailing prayer.

Let’s also speak up to the new administration in Washington, which says it will stand up for persecuted Christians around the world. Let’s remind them of their promises and make sure they follow through.

The Christians of Nigeria need us, and since we are members of the same worldwide Body of Christ, we need them.”

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Boko Haram Recruited 2,000 Child Soldiers in 2016

“The Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram recruited 2,000 children to fight in 2016, a United Nations report released on Tuesday said.

The data were part of a report indicating that at least 65,000 children worldwide were released from military and armed groups in the past 10 years, UPI reported.

An estimated 17,000 children were recruited in South Sudan since 2013 and child soldiers in the Central African Republic numbered 10,000, the report by UNICEF said. 

Of those released from military servitude, more than 20,000 were in the Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly 9,000 in the Central African Republic and 1,600 in Chad.

In northeastern Nigeria, more than 100,000 people have been killed in a seven-year conflict with Boko Haram and more than 2 million people have been displaced, Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, said on February 13. 

Many of the Boko Haram combatants have been boys and girls under the age of 18, and thousands more are among the displaced.

Boko Haram also uses children as suicide bombers. An explosion at a Maiduguri market in December killed at least one person. A local civilian militia leader, Abdulkarim Jabo, commented that the two bombers were girls who appeared to be about 7 or 8 years old.”

https://financialtribune.com/articles/international/60155/boko-haram-recruited-2000-child-soldiers-in-2016

Let’s pray for the end of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, and the release of the children they have captured and are using for fighting and suicide bombings. This is an outrageously wicked group that needs to go out of existence. Let’s pray with His authority and persistence for their overthrow and dissolution

“Christians in Egypt request prayer after the killing of four Christians in the last three weeks, and after the publication on 19th February of a video calling for further killings.

Wa'el Youssef was shot dead by militants in front of his wife and son in his shop in the North Sinai town of al-Arish on 31st January. Two weeks later militants in the same town shot and killed two more Christians: Bahgat William and Adel Shawqi. A fourth Christian, Gamal Tawfiq, was shot and killed last Thursday, 16th February.

Three days later, on 19th February, a video was published by Daesh (the so-called Islamic State group) which called for Christians in Egypt to be killed. The video featured a recording of the suicide bomber who blew himself up in a church adjacent to the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo on 11th December. The bomber killed 29 people.

Five years ago many Christians left the North Sinai region after a priest and a Christian trader were killed and leaflets were distributed which gave Christians 48 hours to leave the region or be killed. Since the overthrow of former President Morsi in 2013, numerous Christians have returned to the region. Now Christians are fearful again. One Christian resident told the Watani newspaper: "We have been leading very hard lives since the last four killings... We can't leave because our livelihoods are here, our homes are here, and we have nowhere else to go. We keep on asking ourselves every day 'Who's next?'"

Islamic militants also regularly attack security personnel in the North Sinai region and abduct or kill civilians suspected of working with the security forces. Last November in al-Arish they killed Suleiman Abu Haraz, a highly respected 100-year-old Sufi Muslim leader. Shortly afterwards they issued a threat against Sufi Muslims in Egypt, saying they must renounce their ways or be killed.

Christians in Egypt request prayer:
a. for the Lord's comfort for all those whose loved ones were killed by Daesh (ISIS) in North Sinai
b. for protection for Christians and others threatened by militants, and for wisdom as to how to respond to these threats
c. that those responsible for the killings will be touched by God's love and will repent”

Middle East Concern
meconcern.org