U.S. President Donald Trump and his counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, have been told that at least 16,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since June 2015, many of them victims of radical Islamic violence.
Muslim Fulani herdsmen in central Nigeria’s Plateau state massacred 20 Christians, including children, as they slept in the hours after midnight on Sept. 8 in an apparent reprisal attack that mystified villagers, sources said.
A Nigerian evangelical denominational leader has been kidnapped and is now being held for ransom by suspected Fulani herdsmen, Nigerian media outlets are reporting.
A Nigerian priest detailed his kidnapping by Islamic radicals, saying he was stripped of his clothes, tied up “like a goat” and prepared to be burned alive, before his prayers to God for a miracle saved him.
Christians facing extreme dangers and slaughter at the hands of Islamic radicals, such as the Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria, have been urged by a prominent bishop and Christian leader to “buy a sword and defend themselves.”
Thousands of people, including journalists from around the world, attended the funeral of Father Jacques Hamel, the French priest murdered on 26 July while presiding over Mass.
