19 Killed by Gunmen in Burkina Faso: 'There's No Christian Anymore in this Town'

This is Islam's ultimate goal - for the whole world!

This is Genocide - Islam's War on Christianity

And in the Sahel, they are winning

Bottles of water are seen in front of Cappuccino restaurant after an attack on the restaurant and the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 18, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Joe Penney)

Dozens of armed unidentified gunmen killed at least 19 and injured 13 others in northern Burkina Faso on Sunday. 

A local government official told AFP on the condition of anonymity that the attack occurred between 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and that 19 bodies were found at the time. The official said a search was underway to find others who were killed.

Hours before the gunmen attacked, the source said the gunmen stopped three vehicles in the town of Arbinda and set them on fire. The official detailed that one of the drivers was killed.

4 million people displaced

The killing in Arbinda comes as armed groups have spread across the Shael (Sahel?) region and committed atrocities in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The United Nations reports that the violence has led to the displacement of at least 4.2 million people, 1 million more than in 2018.

In Burkina Faso, innocent lives are being lost due to the rise of jihadist attacks and government counterterror operations.

In April, more than 60 people were killed in an attack in Arbinda which has been hit hard by violence.

“There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda],” an anonymous contact told the Christian aid charity Barnabus Fund. “It's proven that they were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are killed. Arbinda had now lost a total of no less than 100 people within six months.”

Since 2016, armed Islamist groups linked to both al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State in Greater Sahara have been attacking civilian targets, police stations and military posts in Burkina Faso, according to Human Rights Watch. 

Although the violence has spread throughout the country, the “epicenter” of the violence sits in the northern Sahel, a region that borders Mali and Niger.

Contacts told Barnabus Fund that as many as 82 pastors, 1,145 Christians and 151 households have fled from violence in different locations in the Muslim-majority nation.

In April, a pastor and five churchgoers were killed in the town of Silgadji in the northern part of the country. At the time it was believed that the Silgadji church attack was the first to target a church in Burkina Faso, a nation where Muslims and Christians largely have coexisted. 

But in May, a Catholic church was attacked in the northern town of Dablo, where gunmen also killed a pastor and five churchgoers, some of whom were church elders.

Additionally, extremists in Dablo set fire to the church and a nearby cafe. They also attacked a local health center and burned a nurse’s car.

Also in May, four Catholics were killed during a procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary in the northern municipality of Zimtenga in the country’s Bam province.

Witnesses said that extremists killed civilians because of suspected ties to the government or for supporting the idea of forming self-defense groups, according to Human Rights Watch.

One villager told HRW about an extremist attack carried out in the village of Gasseliki that left 12 people dead in January.

“They kicked the door in, went room to room and found us hiding,” the villager was quoted as saying. “Then they opened fire in a hail of bullets killing three men.”

Another witness told HRW about an attack that killed nine men in Sikiré village.

“People are dominated by fear,” the witness said. “No man over 18 dares sleep in his house anymore for fear of being kidnapped or worse.”

Others told HRW that the extremists are damaging the livelihood of entire villages through the large-scale looting of livestock.

The Christian aid organization Open Doors U.K. reports that many pastors and their families have been kidnapped and remain in captivity while over 200 churches have closed in northern Burkina Faso to avoid more attacks on worship services.

“This is the biggest shock of our lives as Christians. Never in our wildest imagination did we think this would happen and that today we would be left at the mercy of other believers in safer areas,” Pastor Daniel Sawadogo told Open Doors. “We have left everything we labored for. Our children have been pushed out of school. Some of our men have been killed without provocation.”

In addition to the extremist attacks, witnesses told HRW about crimes committed by Burkina Faso security forces, including the execution of 116 men accused of supporting or harboring the armed jihadis.

HRW reports that about 100 armed gendarmes officers were dispatched to Arbinda in August.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in Burkina Faso where an upsurge in armed attacks has caused massive internal displacement," Ursula Mueller, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement issued after a visit to Burkina Faso in March.

"Thousands of families, young children, men, and women are surviving in utterly difficult conditions, some in overcrowded tents, and without enough food, water or medical attention. It is critical that we step up the ongoing emergency assistance in Burkina Faso and increase efforts in the Sahel in general where growing insecurity directly generates a rapid deterioration in the humanitarian situation.”

A state of emergency has been declared in several regions in Burkina Faso.

Deaths Reported in Clashes Between Rival Boko Haram Factions

Boko Haram is split between factions loyal to Abu Musab al-Barnawi and to Abubakar Shekau.

By Ed Adamczyk, UPI


Clashes, resulting in several deaths, were reported between rival factions of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. Forces loyal to new leader Abu Musab al-Barnawi and to Abubakar Shekau, pictured, have engaged in skirmishes in Nigeria's Borno state. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of justice

MONGUNO , Nigeria, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Several people were reported killed in sectarian battles within the Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram, sources said.

The Islamic state-backed group has terrorized Nigeria and surrounding countries since 2009 in an attempt to establish a caliphate in western Africa. At least 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in indiscriminate violence and about 2.6 million have been displaced.

Boko Haram saw a split in its ranks between followers of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who took control in August after the reported death of Abubakar Shekau, and troops loyal to Shekau. Although the Nigerian army has said at least twice that it killed Shekau, he insists he is still in charge.

Don't you just hate it when dead people keep insisting they are alive?


Members surrendering

Sources mentioned by the online news organization Sahara Reporters said skirmishes in Nigeria's northern Borno state between troops loyal to al-Barnawi and to Shekau resulted in the deaths of several Shekau loyalists. Another 18 Boko Haram members, with their families, surrendered to Nigerian soldiers after the clashes, Ali Mohammed, a civilian vigilante protector of the town of Monguno, told Bloomberg News Wednesday.

"They are under custody of Monguno command and we believe the dual battle between Albarnawi and Shekau's camps may have compelled them to sneak out and surrender," Mohammed said.

The Nigerian army, which has said Boko Haram's influence is declining as the military concentrates its efforts on a counter-offensive aimed at eliminating the group, offered no comment on reports of the factional split.

Nigeria’s Anti-Christian Jihad in Numbers: 11,500 Dead, 13,000 Churches Destroyed

Two points to take home with you from this report:
1. Christians are being martyred today, probably as much as at any time in history
2. The Islamic crusade to convert all of Africa is still ongoing

Reuters
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.

A new report offers some startling statistics on the devastation wrought by Muslims on the Christian population in Nigeria, with 11,500 Christians killed, a million displaced and 13,000 churches destroyed or shut down in the last 15 years.

The 48-page report titled “Crushed but Not Defeated: The Impact of Persistent Violence on the Church in Northern Nigeria,” documents the extent of Christian persecution in Nigeria due to targeted violence by Islamic extremists as well as other more moderate Muslims. The document was released after extensive on-the-ground research by Open Doors, a non-profit group devoted to assisting persecuted Christians throughout the world.

The comprehensive study reveals that decades of religious violence directed at the Christian community has had an even larger impact on the Church in Northern Nigeria than previously thought. The violence against Christians in the region has resulted in the deaths of “between 9,000 to 11,500 Christians,” which the report calls “a conservative estimation.” A large number of Christian properties and businesses have been destroyed, the document continues, “including 13,000 churches that have either been destroyed or closed down.”

Moreover, according to the report, 1.3 million Christians in Northern Nigeria “have become internally displaced or have settled in other areas of Nigeria in search for safety and security” since 2000.

One of the more frightening revelations from the report is the finding that the executioners are not just from the well-known Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, but comprise many other more “moderate” Muslims as well.

The sources of violence against Christians in Northern Nigeria are diverse, yet have one thing in common. They are “connected through a common religious denominator: defending northern Muslims’ interests, Muslim identity and the position of Islam,” the report states.

“Not just radical Islam, Boko Haram being the most notable example, but also Muslim Hausa-Fulani herdsmen and the Northern Muslim political and religious elite are also major actors of targeted violence towards the Christian minority,” the report continues.

In part, this violence derives from the historical “migration of Muslims into non-Muslim territories in northern Nigeria to promote the Islamic religious and missionary agenda in Islamizing all parts of northern Nigeria,” it states.

Between 2000 and 2001, twelve Northern states implemented or began more fully enforcing Sharia law, which created fear and marginalization among the substantial Christian minority population of around 30 million.

Radical Islamic groups did not emerge in Northern Nigeria until the 1980s, when Nigerian scholars and students returned from Arabic countries influenced by Wahhabi and Salafist teaching. Each year, thousands of West African Muslims get free scholarships to pursue their studies in Arab countries, which has had a major impact on Nigerian culture.

Nigerian Muslims were also encouraged by the successful Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran (1979), which many took as evidence that radicalization can bring about social change. “The ideal of a pure form of Islam in which Sharia was applied to society in order to create justice and equal opportunities for all, appealed to the imagination of those outside the privileged Northern elite,” the report states.

Though the document goes into great detail, analyzing the situation in a number of specific towns and cities and examining numerous individual cases, the general picture that emerges is one of ongoing, systematic persecution of Christians by Muslims in the Nigerian north.

Such data will make it more and more difficult to assert that the violence committed against Christians in Muslim nations is not religiously motivated.

Some quick history

Islam spread across North Africa in the 7th century - the first century of Islam
Early in the 8th century they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain
Their MO was to force conversion and slaughter those who refused

In the tenth century Islam spread down through west Africa mainly through peaceful means
It reached the Horn of Africa in the 9th century and Mozambique in the 12th century


Islam only crossed deeper into Malawi and Congo in the second half of the 19th century

Now it is trying to employ the tactics of the 7th century to take over Northern Nigeria as well as parts of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.

Islam is moving into southern Africa through immigration. 

It took the Crusades to stop them from conquering Europe, but there doesn't seem to be any will to embark on a crusade in Africa. 

We seem content to let Boko Haram and other fanatical groups slaughter Christians by the dozens or hundreds, and raze their villages til there is nothing left.