Boko Haram Targets Christians in Nigeria

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)-- Officials confirmed Sunday that suspected Islamists killed more than 100 Christian villagers in northeastern Nigeria, according to BosNewsLife, a news agency that has been covering persecuted Christians since 2004.

Local witnesses said the militants who attacked the village of Izghe in Borno state late Saturday night were members of the sinister Boko Haram sect.

"A hundred and six people, including an old woman, have been killed by the attackers, suspected to be Boko Haram gunmen," Borno State Senator Ali Ndume told the AFP. "Sixty of the dead have been buried while the rest are awaiting burial."

Ndume said the Islamists' attacks were becoming "deadlier and more frequent by the day".

According to the BBC, after rounding up a large group of Christian men, Islamic militants dressed in fatigues began executing them in Izghe's village square; the Muslims then went door to door systematically searching for more men to kill. After five hours, 106 Christians were dead.

"All the dead bodies of the victims are still lying in the streets," villager Abubakar Usman told Reuters. "We fled without burying them, fearing the terrorists were still lurking in the bushes."

Boko Haram -- whose name roughly translates as "Western ways are forbidden" -- has been violently trying to impose strict sharia law in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer whose population of 150 million is equally divided between Christians and Muslims.