 Two Christians were reportedly killed and others kidnapped, including a pastor, as militant Fulani herdsmen targeted villages in central Nigeria.
The herdsmen are understood to have attacked the communities on December 1 and the days leading up to it.
Please pray for all those affected by these incidents.
Barnabas Para was killed in Gwanje village, Akwanga county in Nasarawa state, on the first day of the month while he and neighbours sat in front of his house, said a local resident, Moses Bello.
‘At about 8pm I was resting in my house when I heard gunshots,’ Bello told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News (CDI-MSN) by telephone. ‘A neighbour ran into my house and said some armed herdsmen shot at them as they were in front of the house of our neighbour, Barnabas Para. When the attackers left, we went to the scene of the shooting and found Barnabas dead.’
The gunmen seized resident Okigwe Gajere but he escaped and managed to return home, Bello said.
That evening armed herdsmen killed a Christian and wounded another in Ntsakpe village, about 3km from Akwanga town along the Akwanga-Abuja highway, a resident identified only as ‘Francis’ said.
‘The gunmen attacked a neighbour’s house and killed a Christian by the name of Mr Sule,’ he said. Another Christian, Mr Zamani, was also shot and injured and is currently being treated in hospital.
In Goho village, a security aide to a former member of the National Assembly was reportedly shot dead in the kidnapping of Joseph Haruna Kigbu and his wife, also on December 1, as they were on their way to Jos, the Plateau state capital.
Three days earlier armed herdsmen attacked the predominantly Christian village of Ningo, kidnapping a pastor, Charles Joshua of Living Faith Church, and three other Christians, according to Bello.
UPDATE: Verdict against Pakistani believer overturned
A judge in Pakistan has overturned a verdict that denied a Christian’s effort to correct his name and religion on his national identity card as he was a victim of fake conversion to Islam, his attorney said.
On November 16 Ahmad Saeed, an additional district judge in Kasur district, Punjab province, overturned the verdict of a civil judge who ruled that 24-year-old Sufyan Masih could not revert to Christianity after ‘converting’ to Islam, said the Christian’s attorney, Sumera Shafique.
CDI-MSN reported that Shafique had said the civil judge had failed to assess the merits of her client’s case, apparently under fear of backlash from Islamists.
(Source: Christian Daily International-Morning Star News)
PRAYER AND PRAISE - Pray for all those affected by the killing and kidnapping in Nigeria; that the bereaved would be comforted and the abducted returned safely
- Continue to pray for an end to the decades-long violence against Christians in northern and central Nigeria
- Thank God for the district judge’s decision and pray that more mistreated Christians would experience fairness and justice in Pakistan.
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