The Watchman

Nine UN Experts Put Nigeria on Notice for the Taking of Christian Girls

In Bauchi State there is a girl who was 13 when the men took her. She was converted to Islam by force and married by force. Her case is now written into a formal United Nations communication to the government of Nigeria.

She is not alone in the file. Girls abducted from a church in Borno State, still unaccounted for. Christian women abducted and sexually assaulted. A 16-year-old whose family refused a forced marriage proposal from militants. The men cut off her hand.

On June 8, nine UN experts, including the Special Rapporteurs on violence against women, on torture, and on executions, formally warned Nigeria over killings, abductions, forced conversion and forced marriage targeting Christian women and girls. "These reports are deeply troubling," they said.

Geneva has finally said what the survivors have been saying for years. The question is whether a letter can reach Borno before the next girl disappears.

His Church Received 293 Dollars. The Court in Dak Lak Gave Him Seven and a Half Years.

The state counted the money to the last dong. It came to about 293 dollars, and it bought a pastor seven and a half years.

Two of the Three Came Home. It Took Thirteen Days for Anyone to Find Out.

Two of the three church leaders taken from Heiban were released on July 28 and August 1. The news took thirteen days to leave the Nuba Mountains, and it reached us after we published.

He Said Mass That Morning Standing In for Someone Else. He Was Found on Church Road.

Father Samuel Oyetoro filled in for a colleague on leave, said Mass, and was found on Church Road with machete wounds. Four days later gunmen took three people from a Sunday Mass in another state.

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