“This is a very, very sad situation for us,” says Bethel Baptist pastor and state CAN leader whose son narrowly escaped.
More than 100 students at a Christian boarding school in Nigeria’s northern state of Kaduna were kidnapped early Monday morning.
Shooting wildly, armed assailants breached the walls of Bethel Baptist High School in Maraban Rido on the outskirts of the state capital, Kaduna, at about 2 a.m. on July 5 and took students in the school hostel away at gunpoint, area residents told Morning Star News (MSN).
Efforts were still underway to determine exactly how many students were abducted. A Bethel teacher told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that 140 students were kidnapped while 25 students escaped, but area residents living close to the school told MSN that 179 children were abducted of which only 15 escaped.
Established by Bethel Baptist Church in Kaduna, a member church of the Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), the boarding school was attacked after kidnappers overcame security personnel, sources said.
The attack was the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state since December, according to AFP. World magazine recently examined the kidnapping surge, which the Nigerian government blames on bandits while many Christians blame Muslim Fulani extremists.
Joseph Hayab, a Baptist pastor and chairman of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said his son was among those who narrowly escaped.
“Right now I’m speechless,” Hayab told MSN. “The school is an educational ministry of my church. This is a very, very sad situation for us.”
“It is another sad moment as Fulani bandits/gunmen attacked Bethel Baptist,” area resident Christopher Kantoma told MSN in a text message.
Area resident Vincent Bodam said in a text message to MSN that parents and Christians rushed to the ...
from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/3wnHJQm
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