CV NEWS FEED // One of three Benedictine monks kidnapped last week by an armed Muslim gang in Nigeria has been killed, according to the Vatican.
FIDES, the official news agency of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization, said Brother Godwin Ezeon and two of his Benedictine brothers were kidnapped on October 17 from the Eruku monastery in Kwara State, in north-central Nigeria.
The other two abducted Benedictines, postulants Anthony Eze and Peter Olarewaj, were released on October 21.
According to the two freed postulants, a band of Fulani shepherds, Muslim marauders responsible for the killing of thousands of Christians every year, attacked the novitiate’s dormitory while about ten novices and postulants slept.
The Muslim gang forced the three men to march barefoot in the middle of the night. Reaching the bank of a river, the gang shot Brother Godwin and threw his body into the water. They then threatened the two survivors with machetes, claiming that they wanted money.
The Benedictines said the two postulants were released on October 21, but did not say whether they had paid a ransom to their kidnappers.
