BOKO HARAM THREATENS TO KIDNAP CHRISTIAN WOMEN IN NIGERIA

Country: Africa,

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram has followed up its declaration of “war” on Christians in with a threat to kidnap Christian women as part of its latest “campaign of terror”.

Boko Haram’s latest threat
makes Nigerian Christian women
especially vulnerable

Speaking on Tuesday (6 March), two days after the group said that they were planning coordinated attacks to “eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country”, the same spokesman said:

We are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women.

He said that they would not harm or sexually assault the women but would “demand as ransom that the families leave our Islamic areas”.

Boko Haram, which has been fighting to establish an Islamic state in Northern since 2009, has stepped up since Christmas its efforts to drive Christians out of the region.

On Sunday (4 March), the spokesman said:

We will create so much effort to end the Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state that the Christians won’t be able to stay.

The Christian community has been targeted in a series of church bombings and attacks on individuals this year; the violence is having the intended effect of driving Christians from the North. Many are heading to the mainly Christian South, while others are crossing the border into Cameroon.