by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – On the 10th anniversary of the abduction by Boko Haram Islamic terrorists of 276 mostly Christian school girls in Chibok village, in northeastern Nigeria, 91 of the abductees remain missing, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Sparking nationwide and global outrage, on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram jihadists stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in the village of Chibok, Borno state, and kidnapped the school girls who were teenagers at the time.
Fifty-seven of the girls managed to escape soon after the abduction, and negotiations led to the gradual release of 128 girls by 2022, ICC reports. However, with 91 of the “ Chibok girls” still missing, the viral hashtag #BringBackOurGirls remains pertinent. “Official updates on the government’s efforts to free the remaining women have all but stopped,” ICC noted in its report. “Many of these women were forced to marry their abductors and have children of their own while living in Boko Haram’s camps in the Sambisa Forest.”
In the years since the Boko Haram attack on the Chibok school, Nigeria has come to lead the world for the number of abductions and murders of Christians at the hands of Islamic terrorists. “Though news of the Chibok kidnappings galvanized support for the Christian girls on social media, similar mass kidnappings occurring today in Nigeria barely make a blip,” ICC noted.
Nigeria ranks six on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted. “Christians in Nigeria, particularly in the Muslim-majority north, continue to live under immense pressure and to be terrorized with devastating impunity by Islamic militants…Violence by Islamic extremist groups such as Fulani militants, Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State in West African Province) increased during the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, putting Nigeria at the epicenter of targeted violence against the church,” the Open Doors international Christian advocacy reports in a current website statement.
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