Nigeria : Thirteen-year-old forced to watch Pastor hacked to death in Boko Haram deadly violence
ICC Note
Mary, a Thirteen-year-old Nigerian Christian, witnessed a horrifying killing of her pastor by Islamic extremists in Nigeria .
08/05/2009 Nigeria (CSW)-A thirteen-year-old Nigerian Christian has told Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) sources how she was forced to watch her pastor’s murder, and has also spoken of her four-day ordeal as a prisoner in the besieged compound of Islamist group, Boko Haram.
On 26 July, Mary was in church with her pastor, his brother and an older Christian woman when a group of fifty militants broke in. She and her pastor hid as the group killed the pastor’s brother and dragged the older woman out of the room. On discovering their hiding place, the militants cut off her pastor’s hand to stop him holding on to her, then hacked him to death with machetes before setting him on fire.
Mary’s pastor was one of three Christian ministers targeted and killed by Boko Haram during last week’s violence. Photographs showing the corpse of one murdered pastor from the Church of Christ in Nigeria , Rev Sabo Yakubu, indicate that his heart may have been ripped out.
