 A 12-year-old Pakistani Christian girl was abducted from her home at gunpoint by three men who have threatened to sell her into sexual slavery, her parents have said. Sumera Gulzar, who lives in a village in Okara district, Punjab province, said that her daughter, Ariha, was abducted on January 20 by a 40-year-old neighbour and two accomplices after they forced their way into the home. Gulzar said she tried to stop the kidnappers, but they forcibly took Ariha away in a white car.
In our last Prayer Alert (January 27) we featured the case of a 14-year-old Christian girl, Saneha Sharif, who was reportedly abducted by five men outside her home in Sialkot, also in Punjab province, on January 9.
Please pray for the safe return of both these girls.
After Ariha was taken, her parents made contact with the kidnapper’s family in an effort to get them to force him to release their daughter, Sumera told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News (CDI-MSN). ‘The next day I received a phone call from [the abductor] in which he threatened to rape Ariha and to sell her to sex traffickers if we pursued the matter.’
The family again pleaded with the man’s relatives to persuade him to return Ariha, but to no avail. On January 24 they were shocked to learn that his family had disappeared after locking up their home, compelling her to seek police help.
More than a week after contacting police, officers have failed to find her, Gulzar Masih, Ariha’s father, said.
‘We visit the police station every day with the hope that we will get some information about our child, but so far there’s no breakthrough,’ he said.
Appealing to senior police officials and the provincial government for his daughter’s recovery, Masih expressed concern that Ariha could become a victim of sexual exploitation through forced conversion to Islam and involuntary marriage to a man three times her age. PRAISE Thank God for the release from custody of two Christian converts from Islam who had been held in an Egyptian prison for three years without trial, according to religious rights advocates.
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo and Nour Girgis were released on January 25. Both had been held in ‘pre-trial detention’ since 2021 on blasphemy charges, CDI-MSN reported. Abdulbaqi, who is from Yemen and had UN refugee status because of persecution he suffered there, has fled to Canada where he has been reunited with his family. Human rights activists have not publicly released the location of Girgis, who still has charges against him.
Abdulbaqi was arrested after appearing on a Christian television channel to discuss the persecution of Christians in Yemen. Egyptian authorities later identified him as a member of a private Facebook group for converts from Islam and charged him with ‘joining a terrorist group with knowledge of its purposes’ and ‘contempt of the Islamic religion’. Police identified Girgis as a member of the alleged group and arrested him under the same charges.
Human rights advocates in Egypt and abroad said the charges against the two Christians were dubious at best.
(Source: Christian Daily International-Morning Star News) PRAYER · Please pray for the safe return of Ariha and for God’s protection on her and her family. Remember too Saneha and her family · Pray that the authorities would act swifty to find Ariha and other Christian girls in Pakistan who have been abducted · Thank God for the release from prison of Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo and Nour Girgis. Pray that they would know God’s blessing and protection
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