The Watchman

The Sunday They Took the Congregation: 163 Worshippers Marched Into the Bush

The bandits waited until the service was underway. On Sunday, January 18, in a rural Christian community in the Kajuru area of Kaduna State, armed men arrived in large numbers, blocked the church entrance, and forced the congregation out at gunpoint.

"It has been confirmed that 172 people were abducted, including men, women, and children," Enoch Kaura, the local chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told Premium Times the next day. "With nine individuals having escaped, 163 people remain in captivity."

One hundred sixty-three people. Taken from a pew, in the middle of worship, in a single morning.

No group claimed responsibility. The Kaduna police spokesman's phone rang unanswered all Monday afternoon. And this was not the first mass abduction of the season. It was the pattern holding.

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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