CV NEWS FEED // The rise in kidnapping attacks against Christians in Nigeria continues this week as news breaks that radical members of the Muslim majority ethnic group have just kidnapped an additional 61 farmers from their homes.
According to a local report from TruthNigeria, Fulani radicals surrounded the 120 homes of farming families living in Buda, a hamlet located 35 miles southeast of the central Nigerian city of Kaduna at around midnight on Monday.
The report stated:
The armed radicalized Fulani terrorists rousted 61 fathers and mothers with their children out of their houses — even a nursing mother with a newborn — to be kidnap booty. For the devout Christians of Kaduna state it was like a recurrent nightmare.
A representative member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly (KDHA) Hon. Danlami Usman Stingo told TruthNigeria that “32 males and 29 females were kidnapped” in the attack. “No one was shot or hurt,” he continued, “and no house was burned.
“They just wanted to steal as many people as possible without making a noise,” Stingo said.
The Fulani terrorists surrounded the town to ensure that no one escaped before going door to door, hauling people out. Some farmers who had been able to hide were able to make calls to a military base about 3 miles away, Stingo reported:
As they were breaking doors and forcing residents out, the bandits heard the approaching vehicles and motorbikes of the military coming down. That’s when they started shooting.
As they were retreating with their hostages, they were firing.
The Fulani, who were in the area for approximately 25 minutes, escaped by the time military forces arrived.
As CatholicVote previously reported, 287 grade school children were kidnapped last week by the radical Islamic militant group, Boko Haram.
Prior to this month’s kidnappings, the Dicastery for Evangelization expressed its solidarity with Nigerians facing the crisis. By that time in mid-February, 3,964 people had been kidnapped since May 2023.
“In these trying times, this Dicastery offers its deepest and heartfelt solidarity to the Nigerian people, who are grappling with a crisis that is expanding in scope and intensifying in proportion,” the Vatican office stated.
