Boko Haram: Tales of persecution from the Catholic Church in Maiduguri

The Catholic Church in Maiduguri has revealed that 185 churches in the Maidugri diocese were razed by the militant Islamic sect, Boko Haram, while more than 190, 545 people have been displaced.

In a press statement issued on Monday, the Director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese, Rev. Gideon Obasogie said that two months after the terrorists captured 11 towns in Borno and Adamawa States, residents have been unable to return home or their places of worship.

In the statement titled “state of captured towns;” Obasogie said that the “ransacking and torching” of churches in the captured towns and villages, have already displaced many priests, who were now taking refuge in either Yola or Maiduguri metropolisis.

Part of the statement reads:“It is over 30 days now that our Church communities in Gulak, Shuwa, Michika, Bazza…… were sacked by the callous attacks of the Boko Haram terrorists. While Gwoza and Magadali had been under the tyrannical and despotic control of the terrorists and this is almost the sixtieth day.

“Our Priests are displaced, while citizens, who were supposed to celebrate their independence as a free Nation, were rather counting their losses and regrets as they had been reduced to the status of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs. Where is the freedom?

“Life is really terribly difficult. We are waiting eagerly to go back home, even as it is obvious that we are going to reconstruct our looted and burnt houses and ecclesial structures.

“We have been sacked for months, sleeping in uncompleted buildings, camps and school premises. We have been absorbed into houses of relations and friends in sixties and seventies.”
 
He added: “We are waiting to go back home! Nigerians are waiting to go back to their ancestral homes!!! 

 “Our minds are greatly troubled, do we think about our status, Or about our family members yet to be connected with ever since we fled our homes?

“Do we worry about our aged parents who were not so strong to run, they always fed us with words of encouragement and wisdom. Do we worry about our sick members, women and infants who had been trapped? Most of whom we heard had been rape and killed. Or worry about the health, education and future of our children? We have got a lot of questions yet to be answered.”

On the re-opening of closed schools in the area, the priest said: “Talking about resumption, our children have not been fed and well clothed so resumption to schools is practically out of our calculation. In our opinion if thousand of Nigerian children can’t go to school then in the long run “boko is really haram.” Then their future is at stake, quite bleak.

The health condition of our people is truly troubling in their displaced camps in Maiduguri, Mubi, Yola, Uba, Gombe, Biu and Damaturu. While our people perish inaction, or rather slow action is what we get. Political activities in neighboring communities were on-going as though nothing were a stake. 

“As a church we are really going through a severe moment of persecution. The ecclesial circumscription is facing sharp disintegration”.