Tag: Kidnapping

Causes of Chibok kidnapping to be investigated

January 15, 2016 Nigeria Abuja, Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Kidnapping, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a new investigation into the April 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 school girls in the northeastern town of Chibok, and the government’s response. The girls were taken from their dormitories by the Islamist Boko Haram militant sect, sparking global outrage and promises by . . . Read More

16 more Assyrian hostages freed

January 14, 2016 Syria Assyrians, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Syria

Another 16 Assyrian Christian hostages of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, abducted 10 months ago, have been released, The were among 230 people abducted nearly a year ago when IS raided dozens of villages in northern Syria. Middle East Concern said “many months” of negotiations involving church representatives have resulted in . . . Read More

Iraqi priest released

January 5, 2016 Syria Damascus, Idlib, Iraq, Kidnapping, Refugees, Syria, Turkey

An Iraqi priest has been released, two weeks after he was abducted on his way back to his parish in Yacoubieh in Syria’s Idlib province, reports the . Franciscan friar Dhiya Azziz, 41, apparently disappeared from Lattakia, Syria, on 23 December after visiting his family (refugees in Turkey). Released on . . . Read More

Latest Assyrian hostages’ release by ISIS

January 4, 2016 Syria Assyrians, Children, Hasakah, Islamic State, Kidnapping, Syria, Women

ISIS has released 25 of the Assyrian hostages it captured during the militant group’s February 2015 in Hassaka Province, northern Syria. The hostages were released in good health on Christmas day. Two of the hostages were men and the rest women and children. All the children belonged to six of . . . Read More

25 Assyrian captives freed

December 10, 2015 Syria Assyrians, Hasakah, Islamic State, Khabur, Kidnapping, Syria

Twenty-five Syrian Christians abducted by the self-proclaimed Islamic State in February have been released, . The freed captives, all of them men and which included two boys ages 7 and 9, were among 253 Assyrians captured during an IS attack on dozens of villages near the Khabur river in the Hasaka province, . . . Read More

Global Church meets to seek unity in face of persecution

November 6, 2015 Global News -- No Particular Country Albania, Aleppo, Algeria, Catholics, Churches, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, India, Iraq, Islamic State, Kenya, Kidnapping, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nigeria, Nineveh Plains, Orthodox, Pakistan, Pentecostals, Protestants, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yohanna Ibrahim

Twenty-five years ago, on 4 Nov. 1990, a priest risked his life to hold a mass in a cemetery in Albania. In 1967 his president, Enver Hoxha, had declared that he had “abolished” the Christian faith, and that his country was henceforth the world’s first atheist state. On 4 Nov. . . . Read More

Nigeria: 338 rescued from Boko Haram

October 28, 2015 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Children, Kidnapping, Nigeria, Women

Nigeria’s army says that it has rescued 338 people – predominantly women and children – from Boko Haram. “Troops of 28 Task Force Brigade Nigerian Army deployed at Bitta and Pridang carried out a successful raid on suspected Boko Haram terrorists’ camps at Bulajilin and Manawashe villages along Bita and . . . Read More

Boko Haram captives ‘lack skills’ to challenge orders

September 16, 2015 Nigeria Boko Haram, Education, Human rights, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, Nigeria, Quran

A Nigerian wants to roll out counter-radicalisation initiatives to help young people, in case of kidnap, to resist the pressure to carry out orders from jihadists. In a BBC interview, Dr Fatima Akilu, head of the Nigerian government’s Countering Violent Extremism Programme, said she found the ability of former captives . . . Read More

500 days since Chibok girls’ kidnap

August 27, 2015 Nigeria Abuja, Adamawa, Borno, Chibok girls, EYN, IDPs, Kidnapping, Nigeria, Samuel Dali, Yobe

It’s been 500 days this week, since the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a secondary school in the predominantly Christian village of Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria. Since then, little has been heard of their fate: some are presumed to have been forced into marriages, or used . . . Read More

Attackers ‘search for Christians’ in Burkina Faso

August 26, 2015 Burkina Faso Boko Haram, Burkina Faso, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, West Africa

Suspected Islamic militants attacked near the West African nation’s border with Mali on Monday, wounding at least two people as they said they were targeting Christians, a witness and a security official said. Witness Alassane Hamidou told Associated Press that he had gone to a police station in Oursi about . . . Read More

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