Christian Communities in Nigeria Disappearing

Christian Communities near Town in Nigeria Disappearing [Excerpts]

Islamist attacks drive Christians from two villages in Bauchi state; two Christians dead.

In a village outside this Bauchi state town in predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, what was once a Christian community has vanished.

Last March the Christian peasant farmers of Mdandi village, eight kilometers (five miles) northwest of the Government Girls Secondary School in Tafawa Balewa town, were busy harvesting crops and preparing for a new farming season. On March 27 scores of armed, hard-line Islamists – avoiding the surrounding Muslim villages – descended on Mdandi, destroyed the Christians’ homes and drove them out, former residents said.

The attack on Mdandi was preceded by an assault on Feb. 10, believed to have been the fall-out of violence rooted in Muslim and Christian youths fighting over a Muslim’s Jan. 27 burning of a Christian’s billiards table. Some Christians were injured in the Feb. 10 attack.

“On their first attack, we fought back, defending ourselves and our families,” said Luka Zafi, pastor of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation in the village. “And not being able to force us out, they retreated. We had thought that we would not be attacked again. But you see, they left and returned the second time with more of them, and all armed with guns. We could not fight back since we do not have arms to fight them. We ran out of the village, and they destroyed our two church buildings and our houses.”

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/nigeria/article_113681.html