ACN News - Many Feeling Violence in Nigeria

Many fleeing violence in Nigeria

Up to 35,000 people have fled from the north of Nigeria following ongoing attacks by Muslim extremists.

Last Friday, January 20^th, the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram carried out attacks in Kano city, Borno State, killing at least 160 people.

According to reports received by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) on Tuesday, January 24^th, from Church sources in the country, up to 35,000 people left their homes following the violence.

ACN was told, “People just run away to where they think they’ll be safe, especially to Jos and further south.”

One source added, “There is panic. Many just leave everything behind, and run for safety, because they do not know when violence might flare up again.”

There was a large number of Catholics among those fleeing who reported that churches were destroyed in Maidiguri, Borno State and Bauchi, Bauchi State on Sunday, January 22^nd.

ACN was told, “It is the stated goal of Boko Haram to make the whole of the north free of Christians.”

At the beginning of January, group spokesman Abul Qaqa gave Christians living in the north a three-day ultimatum to leave.

Boko Haram, which means “western education is sinful” in Nigeria’s Hausa language, has killed at least 935 people since it launched an uprising in 2009, according to Human Rights Watch.

This includes more than 250 at the beginning of 2012.

According to the report, 550 people were killed in 115 separate attacks by Boko Haram last year, mostly in Borno State.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.  ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384. www.churchinneed.org