“The attackers burned not only the church but the entire village. All living and non-living things were set ablaze.”

Rt Rev'd Yusuf I. Janfalan, Bishop of Ikara, Nigeria

Two tragic stories from Northern Nigeria, recently received by Barnabas Fund, graphically illustrate the brutality of anti-Christian violence in the region following April’s presidential election.

A Nigerian missionary pastor in Bauchi State was tortured and murdered by a group of Muslims when he refused to renounce his faith in Christ. And an entire Christian village in Kaduna State was burned to ashes by a mob of Muslim militants and its water supply contaminated.

The pastor was travelling in a van when it was pulled over by Muslims posing as police. They asked if anyone in the vehicle was a Christian, and the pastor said that he was. The men pulled him out of the van and told him repeatedly to renounce Christ. When he refused, they first beat him, then gouged out his eyes, and finally killed him and burned his body. He leaves a widow and eight children.

On 18 April the village of Ung. Kerau was attacked by more than 300 men armed with various weapons. The Christian villagers fled, and the mob torched the village, including the church. An estimated 183 buildings, both homes and storerooms, were burned.

The Church of Nigeria Bishop of Ikara, the Rt Rev’d Yusuf Ishaya Janfalan, wrote:

[The villagers] were drinking from two wells. But when the mobs arrived they broke their store rooms, carried pepper and poured inside the well. They also poured their clothes, mortars, firewood and all sort of rubbish inside the well. We have stopped the villagers from drinking from the well, as we are suspecting that the mobs poisoned the well.

The bishop said that the (approximately) 300 villagers were peasant farmers who “were attacked simply because they are Christians”. He reported that two other churches and a vicarage in the same region had also been destroyed.

Christians and churches in Northern Nigeria have come under sustained attack since the re-election of Christian President Goodluck Jonathan in April. Supporters of defeated Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari have been taking out their anger on Christian communities. Around 200 churches have been burned or destroyed and over 1,200 houses razed, and at least 800 people are estimated to have been killed in the riots.

Source: Barnabas Fund June 28th, 2011