While in the United States the modern progressive left extracts perceived oppression out of disparities of their own imaginings, around the world, millions of people live at risk of random attacks from ideological extremists who openly and violently seek to oppress others.
Ask yourself—who are the real oppressors in this day and age? The forces fighting for liberty and justice for all, or open terrorists who want to kill in the name of their god?
Stories like this can often put things in perspective—and give us chilling insight the very real threat of global terrorism that urgently needs our attention and prayers.
The Islamic radical group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of hundreds of boys from a school in Nigeria’s Katsina State last week in a chilling indication that the terrorists may be initiating a new wave of attacks in the region.
The Associated Press reports that over 330 boys are still missing from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara after the school was sieged Friday night by men with rifles.
During a firefight between police and the attackers, scores of the 600 students who attend the school were thankfully able to escape.
A spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu, said that the government is currently in negotiations with the terrorists over what will happen to the boys.
“The kidnappers had made contact and discussions were already on, pertaining to the safety and return” the students to their homes, Shehu tweeted during talks with the Governor of Katsina, Aminu Masari.
Neither of them indicated whether the negotiations were with Boko Haram or another group, however, but The Daily Nigerian says they’ve received an audio message from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claiming the group was behind the attack.
In it, Shekau said that the children were abducted because Western-style education opposes the tenants of Islam.
The recording, however, has not been independently verified, the AP notes.
Security agencies, according to Masari, are “deployed for rescue operations have also informed us that they have located their position.”
You may recall Boko Haram’s history of large-scale kidnappings of this style in the past, most notably when in April 214 they abducted over 270 girls from their dormitory at the Government Secondary School in Chibok in northeastern Borno State.
100 of those girls are missing to this day.
Earlier that year, 59 boys were killed during a Boko Haram attack on the Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State.
In recent years, kidnappings have increased in part due to bandits who sometimes work with Boko Haram. It had originally been thought that the attackers of the Kankara school may have been bandits.
According to Amnesty International, over 1,100 people were killed in the first six months of 2020 in violence related to attacks from these bandits.
The AP notes that “If Boko Haram is proven to be behind the abduction, it could mean a new wave of religious extremism is on the rise in Nigeria. For more than 10 years, the group has engaged in a bloody campaign for introducing strict Islamic rule, but it has been mainly active in northeast Nigeria, not in the northwest, where Katsina State is located. Thousands have been killed and more than a million people displaced by the violence.”
Pray that these boys can be returned to their homes quickly!
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