A fraction of over 300 students who were recently abducted from a Catholic school by Nigerian militants have escaped to freedom, the Catholic Church and Christian Association of Nigeria announced on Sunday.
Gunmen kidnapped students and teachers from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state, on Friday, marking the latest episode in a spate of attacks against Christians from radicalized Islamist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen. The Trump administration has voiced increasing concern that the violence, which has been ongoing for years, amounts to a “genocide” against Christians.
The latest mass kidnapping prompted the Nigerian government to close all schools in Niger state, and triggered pleas from Pope Leo for the “immediate release” of those who had been taken hostage.
Around 50 of those kidnapped have escaped thus far. But around 253 of the kidnapped children, along with 12 staff members and teachers, are still being held hostage, said CAN Chairman Bulus Yohanna, a Catholic Bishop who is also the proprietor of the school.
During a congressional hearing on Nigeria last week, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) warned that “shockingly brutal” attacks against Christians are spreading from Muslim majority areas to locations where they had previously enjoyed a higher degree of safety.
“More believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world … particularly men, while women are often kidnapped and targeted for what sexual violence, rape, and other abuse,” Smith said. “These militants also destroy homes, churches, and livelihoods.”
Around 5 million Christians have been displaced and “forced into internally displaced persons camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and subregional borders” in the country, Smith said, citing a European Union report. He added that around 19,000 churches have been attacked and an estimated 10,000 schools across the country have been closed due to the violence at the time of the hearing, which was held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa. Other lawmakers cited estimates stating nearly 17,000 Christians have been killed since 2019.
Smith heads the committee, which held the hearing in the wake of the Trump administration’s move to designate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act — a status used to highlight “particularly severe” religious freedom violations.
The New Jersey lawmaker said violence isn’t limited to Christians. Many moderate Muslims are being targeted as well by extremist Islamists, he said.
“Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims have been murdered as well since 2009. And you know that is less focused upon—I raise it every time, and I hope we all will. They’re killing those who don’t conform to the radical Islamist view, and so they get killed too. I met with many Imams on trips to Nigeria as well as here, and they say, ‘if we speak out, we’ll be firebombed too,’” Smith said.
State Department official Jonathan Pratt voiced concern during his testimony in the House hearing that the Nigerian government has failed to meaningfully intervene in violence against residents. He highlighted militant attacks on Christian farming communities in Benue State in June that killed “over 200,” that “set homes and food stores ablaze and locked families inside burning buildings.” Another attack on Christians in the Plateau State in December 2023, “resulted in hundreds of victims” and destroyed “at least eight churches,” Pratt said.
The government’s lack of action “is tragic and unacceptable. It represents a serious failing on the part of the authorities,” said Pratt, who leads the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs. “Communities are still reeling today from the overt religious-based violence of those attacks and their unanswered calls for help.”
NICKI MINAJ SAYS NIGERIAN CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION DEMANDS ‘URGENT ACTION’
A Nigerian Bishop with the Diocese of Benue delivered additional testimony, urging the U.S. to offer Christians in his country additional support, or else risk Christianity’s “elimination” in parts of Nigeria.
“Without quick intervention, Christianity risks elimination in parts of northern and Middle Belt Nigeria within a very short time,” Bishop Wilfred Anagbe told Congress. “It requires coordinated political, military, and humanitarian intervention. … Mr. Chairman and members, the blood of Nigerian Christians cries out to you. We cannot afford to wait any longer.”