It’s been more than 300-days
since Islamic terrorists with the group Boko Haram snatched more than 270-girls
from a boarding school in Nigeria in the dead of night. [read my blog dated May 12, 2014 – “Christian
Persecution in Abduction of Nigerian Girls”]
Despite a worldwide
outcry and military action, most of the girls are still missing. But some have managed to escape.
“They told us that if we
do not convert to Islam they will slit our throats. They asked the healthy ones to perform the
(Islamic) rites while we, the sick ones, did not perform the rites,” said
15-year-old Abigail John, who was held by Boko Haram for more than 4-weeks. John was among three girls who recently
escaped from Boko Haram. She had worried
she would never see freedom again. “The
way they spoke to us, they had no intention of releasing us,” she said. “They said we would be married off as soon as
we got well and that they would marry us to their members who were single. We never thought we would regain our freedom.”
Dorcas Aiden, a 20-year-old
held captive for 2-weeks last September, admitted that she denied her Christian
faith and pretended to become Muslim, to stay alive. She described what she witnessed in
captivity. “They are teaching (girls)
Islamic (religion); some say they are married, then they are saying that they
are training them (to fight),” she said.
“And they are showing us inside (on) the laptop (videos) every day, and
they are showing us the way they are killing people, killing soldiers,” she
continued. “And they say if they catch
you ladies, they will marry the ladies, and if they catch a man, they will kill
the man.”
The local priest, Father
Maurice Kwairanga, has been helping these girls. “(For) some of them it’s very painful for
them to go through this process of even telling what happened to them,” he
said. “But gradually, they are able to
open up and to talk freely, to feel accepted and to feel that the world has not
turned its back on them.”
At least 219-girls are
still missing. The fight with Boko Haram
killed more than 6,000 civilians in 2014.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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