PROYECTO ALTAR Uniendo a la iglesia alrededor del mundo

Barnabas Fund. Reports of anti-Christian attacks emerge almost daily from Plateau State, which was the location of horrific violence and massacres in the last few months. On 6 April Muslim youths chanting war songs blocked the road as a group of Christians were returning from a church meeting in the Nassarawa Gwom area of Jos, the scene of violence in January. The ensuing clash between the two groups led to the death of one Christian youth at the hands of the security forces who arrived to restore order, according to the Information Commissioner for Plateau State, Gregory Yenlong.

On 10 April the homes of three leading officials in the Christian village of Kura Jenta, 20km south of Jos, were targeted shortly after midnight by a Muslim gang. The attackers used the same tactics as those used in Dogo Nahawa on 7 March, setting homes ablaze and then waiting for the residents to come out in order to kill them. But these homes were made of concrete blocks with zinc roofs; the residents did not leave their houses until after the attackers had fled. Tensions have risen further in Plateau State following the murder of a Christian pastor and his wife in the neighbouring state of Bauchi. The bodies of Ishaya and Selina Kadah were discovered on 15 April in Boto village, Bauchi State, two days after they were kidnapped. Police have arrested two suspects and security has been stepped up in the city of Bauchi. Four days later, the mutilated bodies of two elderly Christian farmers were also found in the village of Rim, south of Jos.

• Please continue to uphold our Nigerian brothers and sisters in prayer. Pray that they will know the strength and comfort of the Lord Jesus in the face of frequent and unprovoked attacks. • Pray for wisdom for the Nigerian government and authorities and that the perpetrators of the recent violence will be brought to justice. Pray that the country as a whole will not be destabilised. • Pray that Christians in Nigeria will be full of the Lord’s grace and forgiveness and that they will not retaliate; pray that they will reflect His love by forgiving their enemies. Barnabas Fund has sent aid to help those bereaved or made homeless by the violence in Jos.

Compass Direct News NAIROBI, Kenia — Cristianos en un área de Etiopia no acostumbrada a la hostilidad anti-cristiana, han sufrido ataques a manos de miembros de la Iglesia Ortodoxa de Etiopia (Ethiopian Orthodox Church o EOC) que se sienten amenazados por su existencia, dijeron líderes cristianos. En Olenkomi, aproximadamente 65 kilómetros al oeste de la capital etíope de Adís Abeba, dos templos de iglesias fueron atacados por una muchedumbre de la EOC en el pueblo de Olenkomi, Región de Oromia, el 27 de enero – dejando a un evangelista inconsciente y a otros cristianos con miedo frente la hostilidad ortodoxa. Los cristianos del área temen que los asaltantes no serán enjuiciados debido a la potente presencia de la EOC y el deseo oficial de tranquilidad, antes de las elecciones del 23 de mayo. Un templo de la Iglesia Mkane Yesus fue destruido en el asalto, mientras la estructura de la Iglesia Hermanos sufrió daños. Los ataques sucedieron después de un incendio accidental producido por velas litúrgicas, que prendieron fuego a un edificio de la EOC.

Los miembros de la EOC echaron culpa a los evangélicos, y en los siguientes ataques el evangelista visitante Abera Ongeremu fue golpeado tan severamente que la muchedumbre lo dio por muerto. Otros tres cristianos también sufrieron heridas menores. Después de que la muchedumbre apedreó la Iglesia Hermanos, atacó con intención la Iglesia Mekane Yesus, donde Ongeremu se alojaba en la casa de huéspedes. Un miembro de la muchedumbre sacó una Biblia de su habitación y le dijo que la quemara. Él se rehusó, y lo ataron de las manos y piernas y lo echaron de vuelta en la habitación, rociando las paredes y techo con diesel y echando llave a la puerta antes de prender fuego a la casa, dijo él. Sin embargo, algunos de los asaltantes argumentaban que Ongeremu no debía morir en el incendio sino golpeado, y dos de ellos lo arrastraron del aula y lo golpearon continuamente. “Después de repetidos golpes, perdí el juicio,” dijo él. “No me di cuenta cómo ni cuándo me dejaron. Solo recuerdo que argumentaban sobre la manera de matarme.”

Compass Direct News LAGOS, Nigeria — The killing of Christians in Jos, Plateau state in Nigeria continued over the weekend with two journalists and five other persons falling victim to Muslim youth gangs. Nathan S. Dabak, an assistant editor at a newspaper of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) called The Light Bearer, and Sunday Gyang Bwede, a reporter at the publication, were stabbed to death on Saturday (April 24) at Gado-Bako in Jos North Local Government Area along with an unidentified motorcyclist.

“The staff of the church were murdered in cold blood by some Hausa Muslim youths,” the Rev. Pandang Yamsat, president of COCIN, told Compass today. “This is clear because they have been using the hand phones of the deceased journalists and boasting that they are the ones that killed them.” The young Muslim men have been boldly answering calls to the cell phones of the deceased journalists, he said; when a friend of Dabak called his cell phone number, an unknown voice responded, “We have killed all of them – you can do your worst!”

Dabak, 36, and the 39-year-old Bwede had left their office on Saturday morning and were on their way to interview local politician Bulus Kaze when they fell into the hands of young Muslim men, Yamsat said. The church started a search for the two Christians that day but did not discover their bodies until about noon on Sunday at the mortuary of Jos University Teaching Hospital, he said. He added that the church was eagerly waiting for results of a police investigation. “The security team of the church has been communicating with the police, but they are yet to make any headway on this unfortunate incident,” he said.In his statement on Monday (April 26), Yamsat lamented that “while efforts have been tailored towards the return of peace to the state by the military Special Task Force, it is regrettable that the state is confronted with a spate of killings.”

“The church is still mourning the death of its pastor and his wife killed in Boto, Bauchi state,” Yamsat said, in reference to the April 13 kidnapping and murder of the Rev. Ishaku Kadah, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Selina. “It is sad that it should again be left to face another brutal murder of two of their staff.” The state branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists also condemned the circumstances that led to the death of the two journalists, expressing deep concern over what it described as “a series of attacks on its members in recent times in the course of carrying out their legitimate duties.”

Four other Christians also were killed on Saturday (April 24) in the Dutse Uku district of Jos’ Nasarawa Gwom area in a revenge attack following the discovery of the corpse of a teenage Muslim who had been missing. Their names were not released at press time. The four Christians reportedly died, three of them stabbed to death, when hundreds of Muslim youths rampaged throughout the area in protest. Earlier, police reportedly exhumed eight bodies from shallow graves in a predominantly Christian village near Jos. The discovery of the bodies brought to 15 the number of corpses found in three days in an area fraught with Muslim aggression that has left hundreds of Christians dead.

Jos has become a flash-point for ethnic and religious tensions in Plateau state, which is located between Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and Christian south. Previously hundreds of Christian villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death on March 7 in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas. On March 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen assaulted two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children. In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from Jos. On Jan. 17, two pastors and 46 other Christians were killed in an outbreak of violence in Jos triggered when Muslim youths attacked a Catholic church. Police estimated over 300 lives were lost in subsequent clashes, in which 10 church buildings were burned.