Violence Heats Up in Nigeria

One of our students at DTS is from Gombe, Nigeria. At Christmas he went home to see his wife and three children under age 10. He must now move his family eight hundred miles away to Lagos because of severe persecution of Christians by radical Muslims. Please pray for the safety of this student, his family, and for wisdom as they deal with the situation.

Compass Direct News is reporting that the number of Christians killed in an Islamic extremist attack in Gombe on Thursday (Jan. 5) has risen to nine, and over the weekend the same terrorist group killed at least 21 Christians in neighboring Adamawa state, sources said. 

Members of the Boko Haram group that seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) on Nigeria emerged from a mosque near the Deeper Life Bible Church in the Boso area of Gombe, capital of Gombe state, at about 7:30 p.m. and shot Christians attending a weekly meeting known as “The Hour of Revival,” area sources said. Silas Ugboeze, who was in coma for three days at the Federal Medical Centre in Gombe, died 20 minutes after Compass arrived on Saturday (Jan. 7), bringing the death toll to nine and the list of those wounded in the attack to 19. Ugboeze’s son Gideon was also killed, and his 12-year-old daughter, Victoria Silas Ugboeze, was wounded in both breasts. She has thus far survived along with her brother Daniel, who was also shot.  

Boko Haram had published an ultimatum in a newspaper on Tuesday (Jan. 3) threatening violence if Christians did not leave predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria in three days. Since then, the group has claimed responsibility for killing at least 44 people in four states. In Adamawa, on Friday night (Jan. 6), 11 people were killed and many others injured at the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) in the Nasarawa area of Yola, the state capital. Earlier on Friday, 12 persons were reportedly killed when armed men claimed by Boko Haram shot a gathering of Christian traders holding a prayer session before opening their shops in Mubi, Adamawa. The gunmen also shot at another group of Christians meeting at a town hall to arrange for the transportation of relatives slain the previous day, bringing the total of those killed in Mubi to 21.

Jerry Johnson, one of the Christians shot in the Gombe attack, was shot in the legs. (The photo of Jerry appears courtesy of Compass Direct News.)