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Boko Haram – ‘Like the Beast of the Apocalypse’

“Boko Haram is like the beast of the Apocalypse or a many-headed Hydra; whenever you cut off one of its heads, it seems simply to grow another”, says Bishop Bruno Ateba of the diocese of Maroua-Mokolo in northern Cameroon, while speaking to representatives of the international Catholic pastoral charity and pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN International).

Towards the end of 2015, the Nigerian government announced that this terrorist group – born in Nigeria in 2002 and radicalized in 2009 – had been finally defeated. However, according to the information received by ACN, there is every indication that the group has simply shifted its sphere of operations to the more rural areas of Nigeria and even extended it into the frontier regions of Cameroon and Lake Chad. “In the villages of Borno State in Nigeria, and throughout the frontier regions of Cameroon, not a day passes without news of attacks and incursions by the terrorists. The abductions and executions of the country people have become a veritable reign of terror and a source of deep psychosis among the population”, Bishop Bruno insists.

Since Christmas, a video has been publicly circulated showing the beheading of 11 people in Nigeria, with responsibility for the atrocity being claimed by the so-called Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), one of the two factions into which Boko Haram split in 2016. Almost at the same time, Bishop Barthélemy Yaouda Hourgo of Yaouga in Cameroon, who comes from a village close to the frontier with Nigeria, wrote the following alarming message to ACN: “My birthplace, the village of Blablim, no longer exists! The terrorists have murdered a young man of my family and totally devastated the entire village, including the house I was born in. Everybody, with the exception of the sick and elderly, was forced to flee to Mora, 10 miles (17 km) away. It will be impossible now to gather in the cotton harvest. Right now the weather is very cold in this area. Please pray for all those who are having to sleep outside in the inclement weather at this time the year.”

Praise the Lord

Read the Whole Article at https://zenit.org/