By Worthy News Africa Service with Worthy News' Stefan J. Bos
JOS, NIGERIA (Worthy News)-- Nigeria's evangelical Church of Christ was mourning Tuesday, April 27, after Nigerian Muslims killed two journalists working for a church publication and two church members in the troubled Bauchi state.
Nathan Sheleph Dabak and Sunday Gyang Bwede working for “The Light Bearer” Newspaper, Church of Christ publication, were murdered in Jos, the central Nigerian city at the epicenter of recent religious that killed hundreds of people this year alone.
The Muslims also took their cell phones and other belongings, church representatives said. When a friend of Dabak called his number one of the Muslims reportedly responded, saying, “We have killed all of them; you can do your worst.”
The church said it had found their bodies on April 25 in the mortuary of the Jos University Teaching Hospital.
MORE KILLINGS
The slaying of the journalists came shortly after the murder of two members of the Church of Christ church on April 13 in Bauchi state. Reverend Ishaya Kada and his wife Selina Kada were killed by suspected Islamic militants in Boto village in Bauchi.
Witnesses said when their bodies were found, they had been burned beyond recognition. “We call all our members to remain calm; although there are security lapses. They should not panic but trust God with their lives…We must cry out to God and allow Him to take vengeance. The leadership will take the matter to appropriate quarters,” said Church pf Christ President Pandang Yamsta in a statement distributed by International Christian Concern (ICC), a major rights group.
ICC and other rights groups have expressed concerns about the reported ongoing killings of Christians in the northern Bauchi state which has a large Muslim population.
Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous country with more than 140 million people, is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a largely Christian south. Parts of the country’s center fall into a religious fault-line that erupts periodically into violence.