Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
DAMATURU, NIGERIA (ANS) -- They stormed this town in Yobe state, northern Nigeria like a swarm of bees. At the end of their four-hour rampage, some 150 people had been killed - at least 130 of them Christians, according to church sources.
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Destruction of Living Faith Church in Damaturu. |
According to a story by Compass Direct News, hundreds of people are still missing, and the destruction included the bombing of at least 10 church buildings. More than 200 members of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram sect stormed the Yobe state capital, Damaturu, at 5 p.m. on Nov. 4. It didn’t take long for the terrorists to block all four major highways leading into town.
Compass Direct reported that church leaders said having successfully dislodged security agencies after a series of gun battles and the detonation of explosives, the terrorists then led other area Muslims to the only Christian ward in town, New Jerusalem in Damaturu, home to more than 15,000 Christians.
When the Muslims went to New Jerusalem, Compass Direct reported they said any Christian they met who could not recite the Islamic creed was instantly shot and killed.
“The trauma my 10-year-old son had as a result of sounds from guns and explosions has not left him, as he has refused to eat ever since the attack,” said Rev. Idris Garba, 41, chairman of the Yobe state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
Garba, who also pastors the ECWA Good News Church in the New Jerusalem area of Damaturu, said his 500-member church has dwindled. “We could not have had more than 100 worshipers on the Sunday after the attack,” Compass Direct reported he said.
He added, “Most Christians are either missing or have left the town.”
Compass Direct said bomb blasts the previous day (Nov. 3) in Maiduguri, Borno state about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east killed four people, with one of the explosions coming from a triple suicide bombing of a military base.
For more information about Compass Direct News go to www.compassdirect.org
| Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available athttp://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net. |  |
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