Originally published CBN News
A new report out of the UK is sounding the alarm about the potential genocide of Christians in Nigeria.
A coalition of British parliamentarians launched an extensive study into violence there and found that Islamist Fulani herdsman killed more than 1000 Christians last year and 6 000 since 2015.
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ISIS has committed genocide against Christians in Syria and Iraq and now it looks like we’re getting very close to a similar situation in Nigeria.
To learn more about what’s going on there, CBN News spoke with Petr Jasek who served in Nigeria for the Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) and he spent 15 months in prison in Sudan for helping persecuted Christians in that country.
Jasek said several groups are attacking Christians throughout Nigeria, but the secular media views these killings as merely a tribal conflict.
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“I have been in Nigeria more than 30 times in the last 20 years and I can say the situation was really bad much earlier than it was being recognized,” Jasek explained. “Christians are being attacked by several groups. One of them is definitely Boko Haram, which is a branch of ISIS, and the Fulani herdsman.”
“Unfortunately the secular media are often biased and trying to present this as a tribal conflict rather than religious.”
Jasek highlights that Christians are certainly being targeted and this could be classified as genocide.
“I would say there are many Christians being killed in very brutal ways. They are just killing our brothers and sisters there,” he said. “In one sense, I would say maybe it has reached that with large numbers. It is especially dangerous and cruel and I would say that this is very close to what the secular media would call a genocide.”
Jasek currently serves as VOM’s global ambassador and is author of the new book Imprisoned with ISIS: Faith in the Face of Evil.
He explained that while he was in prison in Sudan, God gave him the strength to share the Gospel with his persecutors.
“That was the place where I learned the hardest lesson that the Lord’s strengths can be revealed in my weakness,” he said. “Having lost 55 pounds within the first three months, I was extremely weak, but in this physical and emotional weakness the Lord gave me the strength to share the gospel with these enemies of the Gospel.”
“I could even pray for those who were actually beating me, slandering me, torturing me, and that’s the grace from the Lord. In this situation of the Christians in Nigeria. They are still loving their enemies and they’re praying for them. That is something unique on Christianity,” Jasek concluded.
