Free Republic

A pastor freed by Islamist kidnappers in Plateau State, Nigeria has told how another cleric was murdered by the gang as he tried to escape. Pastor Gabriel Joseph Dipak said that the killers joked and boasted together after they slaughtered Pastor Hills Emmanuel “like a goat”. The two men only met and began talking as they travelled in a minibus from the state capital, Jos, to Bokkos on 28 August. The vehicle was ambushed at a roadblock by four Fulani men, who were armed with guns and machetes and shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is the greatest”) – a traditional Islamic...

Fr. Alphonsus Afina, who served as a priest for many years in the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks, has been captured by the militant Islamist terrorist group – Boko Haram – in his home Diocese of Maiduguri, Nigeria. A social media alert sent on June 2 by Fairbanks Bishop Steven Maekawa called on parishioners to join him for a special Mass on June 3 to pray for Fr. Afina. “I ask for your urgent prayers for Fr. Alphonsus Afina,” Bishop Maekawa stated. “As many of you know, Fr. Alphonsus served in our diocese for six and half years and returned to...

Brother Peter Olarewaju recently recounted the horrific kidnapping and torture he and two other monks from a Benedictine monastery in Nigeria underwent, including the murder of one of the monks. Brother Godwin Eze spent his final hours encouraging his brother monks before he was singled out, shot, and his body thrown in a fast-flowing river. Eze was kidnapped Oct. 17 alongside Olarewaju and Brother Anthony Eze from the Benedictine monastery in Eruku in the Ilorin Diocese, tortured, and later killed. Unable to find the murdered monk’s body after days of searching along the river where it was thrown, the monastery...

ABUJA, Nigeria, March 28, 2022 (Morning Star News) – Fulani herdsmen on Thursday (March 24) killed an estimated 50 Christians and abducted a Catholic priest in attacks on communities in an area of Kaduna state, Nigeria, area sources said. In late-night attacks on 10 predominantly Christian communities of Giwa County, herdsmen and others also took about 100 people captive and burned down a church building, area residents said. “They also burned houses, stores and killed animals,” resident Nuhu Musa told Morning Star News by text message. “These attacks continued and lasted up to the morning of Friday, 25 March. They...