Nigerian Christians Arrested Following Riots
Seventeen Christians from various denominations in Aba, a city in the country's southern Abia state, were arrested last month over reprisal attacks on Muslims. According to Compass Direct, sources said the believers were reacting to "incessant" assaults on Christians in northern Nigeria by Muslim extremists. Religious clashes on Jan. 11 in Central Nigeria's Plateau state left one Christian dead. Joel Nimfa, a Christian leader in the Kanam community, was killed in his farmhouse when Muslim bandits attacked the farm and other Christian settlements. Christian leaders in the northern state of Kaduna filed a lawsuit last month against the Nigerian and the Kaduna state governments and the newspaper, "ThisDay," over last November's religious riots. An article in "ThisDay" has been blamed for the death of 1,000 people and the destruction of about 125 churches in the city of Kaduna, Compass reported. "We are also aware that no amount of wealth can pay for a single human life, and that is why we are demanding compensation for destroyed churches and not for lives," said Joseph Danlami Bagobiri, Catholic Bishop of the Kafanchan Diocese and the chairman of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria. :: This Charisma News report is submitted for your believers persecuted (Matthew 24: 8) files.