About 40 Christian Killed During Christmas in Nigeria
Church Destroyed By Blast
Nigerians continue to fear that religious clashes would continue after the Islamist movement Boko Haram executed a bomb blast in a Roman-Catholic church in Abuja during Christmas, causing 30 people to day in the day of Christ’s birth on earth. A wave of coordinated attacks against Christian churches continued in Nigeria on Monday, as churches were targeted during service in the province of Jos, in Damaturu, and at the outskirts of the capital Abuja.
27 people died on Monday in the Saint Teresa church in Madalla, an Abuja’s satellite town, as a bomb exploded nearby. A policeman died in the province of Jos, in another explosion. In Yobe State the capital of the state Damaturu was hit by two explosions, while a third stroke the city of Gadaka.
Boko Haram on Monday claimed responsibility for all attacks on the Christian sites. In Madalla people were killed while leaving the church after the service was completed. The authorities counted 16 vehicles destroyed by the explosion.
In Damaturu the target was the headquarters of the security forces, against which a suicide bomber drove his car, causing four people to die. The target was picked after security engaged in clashes with the Boko Haram the day before.
Boko Haram claims that the attacks it executed was a response to the events on Eid el-Fitr, when many “Muslim brothers” were killed by the general government.
The attacks were condemned by the president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, who said that they went against the spirit of peace-loving Nigerians. While the president condemned them though, many see these attacks as a result of the lack of determination on the part of the government to ensure that the population of the country is being protected against such acts of violence.
Critics of Jonathan’s regime said that bombings represent a burden Nigerians must live with and that it would last forever. They reminded that the claim to be vigilant and committed to tackle the attackers was made by the government in August too, when an attack coordinated and executed by the same Boko Haram at the UN headquarters left 21 people dead and 60 injured.
A small group of Christian protesters gathered on Monday in Abuja to protest against the inadequacy of governmental policies to protect them against sectarian violence. A former military ruler of Nigeria said that the attacks were showing the lack of response on the government’s part, while the presidential spokesperson said that they were actually a form of retaliation from the Boko Haram for the latest actions taken by the government against it.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and its political system is designed to ensure a balance between the two large religious communities living there: Christians and Muslims.
The Islamist Boko Haram is an anti-Western organization (the name means loosely translated “whatever comes from the West is a sin”) intending to establish in the Muslim part of Nigeria a shariah-governed Islamic state.
They executed this year various actions against bars and clubs where Muslim people were drinking or listening to Western music. Their attacks on motorcycles became their “signature” on such cases.
The attacks against the church in Abuja came shortly after the pope in Rome issued a message to the world, demanding the stop of violence religiously motivated.
2010 ended with a bloodbath created by Islamist Egyptians in Alexandria as the Christian Copts were preparing to celebrate Nativity and 2011 ends with this gruesome attack on a Christian church in Nigeria as people celebrate the same religious moment.
Christians come under different form of brutal persecution in the Muslim countries all over the world, and their freedom of conscience is democratically and ideologically restrained at home too, in Europe and the United States of America, where different decisions made by the politically correct system places them on the defensive in their attempt to worship as their forefathers have worshipped for millenia.
