ICC Note:
Boko Haram, a radical Islamic insurgency bent on establishing a separate Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, has rampaged through the region at the start of 2015. The following is a review of the devastation Boko Haram has wreaked on Christians and moderate Muslims across northern Nigeria in just the first week of the new year and a call for prayer for those victimized by the insurgency.
01/07/2015 Nigeria (Cross Map) – Suspected Boko Haram troops seized a military base outside the Nigerian town of Baga near Lake Chad after engaging troops in a fierce battle that lasted several hours, witnesses said on Sunday. The base is used by the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) which was established in 1998 and is made up of troops from Nigeria as well as Niger and Chad.
On New Year’s Day a suicide bomber disrupted a church service at a Gombe church by blowing himself up at the gates of the church after guards prevented him from entering the compound on a motorcycle. Only one was killed but an unknown number of people were injured. Two days before a female suicide bomber was killed as she tried to enter the military barracks in Gombe. On Dec. 31 seven people died in a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Potiskum in Yobe state.
In neighboring Cameroon, at least 15 people were killed in an attack on a bus by suspected Boko Haram militants on New Years Day, a senior local security official and a businessman said on Saturday. Earlier, on Sunday, Dec. 28, some 1,000 suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked five towns in northern Cameroon and briefly occupied a military camp before being removed by the air force, an army spokesman said.
Also, CNN reported 40 boys and young men from the village of Malari in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno were kidnapped on Dec. 31. Boko Haram took the hostages and drove into the Sambisa forest.
Please continue to pray for Nigeria. The country faces presidential elections in February and the continuing insecurity is a matter of great concern. Christians in Nigeria’s northeast and across the border in northern Cameroon are in grave danger and need prayer.
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