Gunmen in Nigeria kidnap four Catholic nuns on highway

Update – Friday 26th August All Africa webnews reports that the nuns are free and unharmed

Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities say gunmen have released four abducted Catholic nuns unharmed. The nuns’ church says no ransom was paid.

Reuters says nothing about these ‘gunmen’, concentrating on the criminality of their act. Christian Broadcast News (CBN) is in no doubt that these are Islamic extremists.

Islamic extremists in southern Nigeria abducted four nuns on Sunday, three days after suspected Fulani herdsmen shot and killed a Christian attorney in the country’s northwest, according to reports. Some commentators frame the incursions of the Fulani tribe as the age old clash of nomadic hunters who want to hunt across the farms of settled agricultural tribes. But in Northern Nigeria this is very much in the nature of a new jihad, as the Muslim Fulani move ever further south into agricultural areas that were never previously part of their hunting range. 

As CBN News has reported over the years, the Fulani herdsmen, also known as the Fulani militia, are often radical Muslims who target Christians in their relentless attacks on villages across the West African country. They were early adopters of Islam, participating in holy wars, or jihads, in the 16th century that established them as a dominant social and economic force in Western Africa, according to WorldWatch Monitor.

in Imo state in southeastern Nigeria, Islamic extremists working with Fulani herdsmen kidnapped four Roman Catholic nuns while they were traveling in the Okigwe-Umulolo area.

Johannes Nwodo, Christabel Echemazu, Liberata Mbamalu, and Benita Agu were abducted while “on their way for a thanksgiving Mass of one of our sisters,” according to the Rev. Sister Zita Ihedoro, secretary-general of the Sisters of Jesus the Saviour. “We implore for intense prayer for their quick and safe release. . .  May Jesus the Saviour listen to our prayers and May our Mother Mary intercede for the unconditional release of our dear Sisters.”

In the northwest, Nigeria’s military has started an air offensive to eliminate the armed groups responsible for kidnapping citizens from villages and towns in the region.