Boko Haram Insurgents Captured 11 Towns, Churches Under Attack

The Director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese, Rev. Gideon Obasogie, said that 185 churches in the diocese were torched and 190, 545 people displaced after Boko Haram insurgents captured 11 towns in Borno and Adamawa states.

According to a press statement tagged “state of captured towns”, Obasogie said the “ransacking and torching” of churches in the captured towns and villages, have already displaced many priests, and are taking refuge in either Yola or Maiduguri metropolisis for the last one or two months.

He said the capturing of towns along with the torching of about 185 places of worship is, “sad, heart arching and potentially dangerous to the territorial integrity and common good of Nigeria.”

“It is over 30 days now that our Church communities in Gulak, Shuwa, Michika and Bazza were sacked by the callous attacks of the Boko Haram terrorists. While Gwoza and Magadali had been under the tyrannical and despotic control of the terrorists and this is almost the sixtieth day.

“Our Priests are displaced, while citizens, who were supposed to celebrate their independence as a free Nation, were rather counting their losses and regrets as they had been reduced to the status of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Where is the freedom?

“Life is really terribly difficult. We are waiting eagerly to go back home, even as it is obvious that we are going to reconstruct our looted and burnt houses and ecclesial structures. We have been sacked for months, sleeping in uncompleted buildings, camps and school premises. We have been absorbed into houses of relations and friends in sixties and seventies,” the statement says.

On displaced priests and residents, Obasogie said: “Meals time is always difficult and shameful. We have counted weeks rolling into months, must we also count years? We are waiting to go back home! Nigerians are waiting to go back to their ancestral homes!

Our minds are greatly troubled, do we think about our status, Or about our family members yet to be connected with ever since we fled our homes?”

The statement also queried: “Do we worry about our aged parents who were not so strong to run, they always fed us with words of encouragement and wisdom. Do we worry about our sick members, women and infants who had been trapped? Most of whom we heard had been rape and killed. Or worry about the health, education and future of our children? We have got a lot of questions yet to be answered.”

On re-opening of closed schools, Obasogie said that children have not been fed and well clothed so resumption to schools is practically out of our calculation. “In our opinion if thousands of Nigerian children can’t go to school then in the long run “boko is really haram.” Then their future is at stake, quite bleak.”

The health condition of people is truly troubling in their displaced camps in Maiduguri, Mubi, Yola, Uba, Gombe, Biu and Damaturu.

Thousand displaced, many killed, and others forcibly conscripted. These are pointers that Boko Haram terrorism is not just a northern problem, but a Nigerian problem and in fact a global issue.