Slaughter of Christians sparks call for PM to order action

Church gutted earlier this year

Source: International Organisation for Peace Building, Social Justice; Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust

Campaigners against Christian persecution are urging Boris Johnson to take direct action to protect Nigerian Christians after 11 were beheaded by Islamic State terrorists in a brutal Christmas Day attack in the north east of the country.

Their intervention follows the Prime Minister's strongly worded Christmas Day message in which he vowed to "defend" the right of Christians to practise their faith in the face of mounting assaults across West Africa and the Middle East.

It also follows public warnings by campaigners that the frequency and savagery of the massacres tends to peak at the time of major Christian festivals. Some 40 Christians in Nigeria were murdered by Islamists in the week leading up to last Easter.

A report commissioned by the Foreign Office, from the Bishop of Truro, has warned that the world-wide attacks are close to genocide and urged sanctions on regimes that have committed human rights abuses.

The alarm has been sounded by Ayo Adedoyin, executive director of the International Organisation for Peace Building and Social Justice (PSJ), and Baroness Caroline Cox, chief executive of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), who has recently returned from the region after speaking to the survivors of atrocities "as bad as it gets anywhere in the world".

Mr Adedoyin welcomed the Prime Minister's comments in which he said: "We stand with Christians everywhere, in solidarity, and will defend your right to practise your faith." Downing Street added that the Prime Minister wanted to examine how Britain could lead on the issue around the world.

But with the plight of Christians deteriorating rapidly across Nigeria and elsewhere, Mr Adedoyin said it was time for the Government to intervene by applying pressure to the Nigerian authorities to step up their efforts to combat the atrocities committed by Islamist Fulani militia and the new incarnation of Boko Haran - the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), who released a video of the Christmas Day beheadings.

Mr Adedoyin said: "We have had many fine words from the Government. But with the Fulani militia and ISWAP on the rampage across the Central Belt and the North East, we need more than words. Britain gives £320 million a year to Nigeria in aid and we should be thinking about withholding at least some of that money until the Nigerian Government takes seriously the threat to Christians, which is costing more than 1,000 lives a year and growing rapidly."

Baroness Cox has made several visits to Nigeria in recent years to witness first hand the havoc wrought by the Fulani militia, who belong to a semi-nomadic ethnic group of about 20 million people across 20 west and central African countries.

She said: "In the last four to five years growing numbers of Fulani have adopted a land-grabbing policy - motivated by this extremist belief system and equipped with sophisticated weaponry - leading to the massacre of thousands of people and permanent displacement of vulnerable rural communities.

"It is high time we made foreign aid conditional for countries, such as Nigeria, stained with Christian blood. Until President Buhari and the Nigerian government can prove they have undertaken effective measures to halt the increasingly routine slaughter of Christians in their own land, we would do well to give our money to other, more deserving governments."

Lord David Alton, a leading supporter of HART, said that ministers should study the parliamentary debate held 18 months ago. "The warnings of systematic persecution and horrific executions, abductions and an unfolding genocide have been wantonly ignored.

"These terrible executions in Nigeria will be a first test of how the UK's Foreign Office and aid programmes will be deployed to provide substance to Boris Johnson's very welcome commitment to end such barbarism."

The beheadings of the 11 Christians shown in the ISWAP video were gruesome 'revenge' for the recent killing in Syria of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They came after terrorists in the

'Boko-Haram enclave' of the North East of Nigeria struck a Christian village, Kwaragulum near Chibok in Borno State, where over 200 school girls were kidnapped in 2014. They killed, injured and kidnapped several people and once again left another community devasted, mourning and burying their dead on Christmas Day.

LINKS

HART - www.hart-uk.org/

PSJ - https://psj.org.ng/