Coordinated attacks by Islamic militants in four states of Northern Nigeria on Sunday and Monday left an estimated 80 people dead, including two pastors. At least seven churches are reported destroyed, with other targets including four police stations, a prison and a customs post.
The violence began in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, on Sunday 26 July when a police station, a prison and five church buildings were set on fire. Elsewhere in Borno a customs post was burnt. The following day the violence spread to Yobe state, where a police station was torched and two churches destroyed, and to Bauchi state and Kano state, each of which reports an attack on a police station. Police say that 50 militants and five police officers have been killed, but other sources suggest the total deaths are at least 150, maybe 250.
The violence eased when curfews were imposed. Security forces are now clamping down hard on the militants.
Large-scale anti-Christian violence flares up regularly in certain Nigerian states, though in this most recent violence it seems that the police were intended as targets as well as the Christians. Many local people feel that the security forces could have intervened in the preceding months to control the activities of these militants but failed to do so, perhaps because so many of the militants come from well connected families.
Read the full report here. We are led like lambs to the slaughter... in these last days. Maranatha!
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