A Catholic priest in Nigeria has released a desperate plea for help from the international community as Christians continue to be persecuted and murdered in his country by fundamentalist Islamic militants.
In a message to the charity, “Aid to the Church in Need”, Father Joseph Bature Fidelis of Maiduguri Diocese says every day “Our brothers and sisters are slaughtered in the streets.”
His appeal follows the abduction of four young seminarians in the city of Kaduna, in north western Nigeria.
An estimated 1000 Nigerian Christians were murdered in 2019 alone for their faith. Some 6000 of them have been killed since 2015.
Father Fidelis asked the government of Italy, where he studied, and all European governments “to put pressure on our government to do something to defend us.”
Although the government of Muhammadu Buhari says it has put a number of security measures into place to protect Christians in the area, it appears incapable of guaranteeing security and preventing continuous violence and even anti-Christian massacres.
According to Father Fidelis, the support and intervention of European governments is therefore necessary as “Otherwise we risk extermination.”
