Nigeria

Northern atrocities
Gunmen in the northern Nigerian state of Yobe have shot dead at least six Christians, the army and local officials say.

They say a church in Peri village near Potiskum, the economic capital of Yobe, was set on fire in an attack late on Christmas Eve.

No group has so far said it carried out the attack.

The Boko Haram Islamist militant group has targeted a number of churches in the north since 2010.

It has killed hundreds in its campaign to impose Sharia law.

A series of bomb attacks carried out by the group across the country at Christmas 2011 - including two at Christmas Day church services - left almost 40 people dead and many more injured.

'Savage acts of terrorism'
The head of the Network for Justice human rights group, Zakari Adamu, told the BBC that the gunmen also attacked the homes of Christians following the attack during the midnight mass service.

Boko Haram carried out a series of attacks on Christians this time last year
The AFP news agency reported that the pastor of the church - a branch of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) - is among the dead.

Military Spokesman Eli Lazarus told the Reuters news agency that six people were killed in the violence, which happened when "unknown gunmen attempted to attack Potiskum but were repelled by troops".

"While they were fleeing, they attacked a church in a village," he said.

The military say that a suspected gunman has been detained, and security in the area has been stepped up to reassure residents.

They could not say how many gunmen took part in the attack or whether they belonged to a particular organisation.

The violence comes on the same day that the Pope - as part of his Christmas Day address - prayed for harmony in Nigeria, lamenting what he called "savage acts of terrorism" that frequently target Christians.

The head of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Yobe, Idi Garba, told AFP that many worshippers at ECWA "are still missing".

"I have been informed that six bodies have been recovered," Mr Garba said.

He said that some worshippers who lived near the church "fled their homes during the attack and it is assumed that they are still hiding in the bush".

Correspondents says that while Yobe's population is overwhelmingly Muslim, Potiskum has a significant Christian minority. Peri is just 2km (1.24 miles) outside the city.

Boko Haram has been able to carry out so many attacks in Yobe because it borders Borno state where the insurgent group is based.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous state and its biggest oil producer. Most people in the south are Christian, whereas the north has a Muslim majority.

The funeral ceremonies and burials of the Igbo people are extremely complex, the most elaborate of all being the funeral of a chief. However, there are several kinds of deaths that are considered shameful, and in these circumstances no burial is provided at all. Women who die in labour, children who die before they have no teeth, those who commit suicide and those who die in the sacred month – for these people their funeral ceremony consists of being thrown into a bush. Their religious beliefs also led the Igbo to kill those that might be considered shameful to the tribe. Single births were regarded as typically human, multiple births as typical of the animal world. So twins were regarded as less than humans and put to death (as were animals produced at single births). Children who were born with teeth (or whose upper teeth came first), babies born feet first, boys with only one testicle, and lepers, were all killed and their bodies thrown away in secrecy.

The BBC's John Simpson in the northern city of Maiduguri says Boko Haram's comments show signs that the group is willing to negotiate.

Three of the girls - wearing full-length cloaks - are shown speaking in the 27-minute video, obtained by French news agency AFP.

Two girls say they were Christian and have converted to Islam, while the other says she is Muslim.

"These girls, these girls you occupy yourselves with... we have indeed liberated them. These girls have become Muslims," Abubakar Shekau says in the video.

He said his offer to swap the girls for imprisoned militants only referred to the children who had not converted to Islam.

It is thought the majority of the abducted girls are Christians, although there are a number of Muslims among them.

A man who is related to three of the abducted girls said the video at first gave him hope, but then made him anxious and tearful.

"Maybe they are converted into another religion by force, so it truly is a kind of terrifying situation," said the man, who did not want to be named.

The town where the girls were kidnapped, Chibok, is cut off by militants, who have been attacking villages in the region. Seven fathers of kidnapped girls were among 51 bodies brought to the Chibok hospital after an attack on the nearby village of Kautakari this month, said a health worker who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals by the extremists.

At least four more parents have died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses that the community blames on trauma due to the mass abduction 100 days ago, said community leader Pogu Bitrus, who provided their names.

"One father of two of the girls kidnapped just went into a kind of coma and kept repeating the names of his daughters, until life left him .........

In Nigeria, over 200 girls were recently abducted from their boarding school and are reported to be eventually sold as brides for $ 12 each.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — With a malevolent laugh, the leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremists tells the world that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off, dashing hopes for their freedom.

"If you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you ... to die from grief," Abubakar Shekau sneers, addressing the parents of the girls and young women kidnapped from a remote boarding school more than six months ago.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack Sunday, which also seriously wounded 46 people, but it bore the hallmarks of Nigeria's homegrown extremist group, Boko Haram. The girl, who appeared to be no more than 10 years old, got out of a tricycle taxi in front of the busy cell phone market in Potiskum and minutes later her explosives detonated, according to Anazumi Saleh, a survivor of the attack who suffered head injuries.

Authorities were not immediately able to confirm the girl's identity or her precise age from her remains. In recent months, Boko Haram has begun using teenage girls and young women for suicide bombings in marketplaces, bus stations and other busy areas, but the girl in Sunday's attack appeared far younger. It is not clear whether the girls and women have set off the explosions themselves, or whether the detonations were controlled remotely.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the local Hausa language, attracted international condemnation when its fighters kidnapped 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls from a boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April. Dozens escaped but 219 remain missing. Boko Haram has said the girls have converted to Islam and been married off to extremist fighters.

Boko Haram's violent campaign in Nigeria killed at least 10,000 people last year, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs. At least 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes in the group's brutal five-year uprising to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 160 million people divided between mainly Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

Potiskum, the capital of Yobe state, has been the target of repeated attacks. In November, a suicide bomber disguised in a school uniform set off explosives hidden in a backpack during an assembly at a high school, killing at least 48 students and wounding 79 others.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram denied a Ministry of Defense statement that Nigeria's military had retaken the border garrison town of Baga. It has been reported that troops from Nigeria and neighboring Chad were retaking towns and villages held for months by Boko Haram even as the extremists attack other northeastern communities. Scores of civilians have been killed in such attacks in recent days.

"Baga still is under the control of the mujahedeen and any claim by the regime that they took the city is their usual lie," said a brief message posted on the Twitter account of Al-Urwa Al-Wuthqa, a group that releases propaganda for Boko Haram, according to the SITE intelligence monitoring service.

The Associated Press was trying to verify the situation in Baga, a town on Lake Chad near the border with Cameroon where the extremists are accused of killing hundreds of people in a January attack after Nigerian troops fled.

The government hopes the military will be able to reclaim enough territory to allow presidential elections March 28, which Boko Haram is threatening to disrupt. The vote looks to be the most closely contested ever in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer. Boko Haram, which denounces democracy as a corrupt Western concept, has warned it will disrupt the elections by attacking polling stations.

The group has indicated it may soon join up with the Islamic State group, according to a message posted Sunday on Twitter, according to SITE. Boko Haram began emulating the Islamic State group last August, declaring it had established an Islamic caliphate in territory it controls in northeastern Nigeria.
"We give you glad tidings that the group's Shurah Council is at the stage of consulting and studying, and we will let you know soon the group's decision in respect to pledging allegiance to the caliph of the Muslims, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," the group said in the message, referring to the Islamic State leader.

'Boko Haram freed Nigerian women tell of captivity horror'

Former hostages held by Boko Haram militants in northern Nigeria say some fellow captives were stoned to death as the army approached to rescue them.

The women said Boko Haram fighters started pelting them when they refused to run away as the army came nearer.

A group of nearly 300 women and children was brought out of the vast Sambisa forest to a government camp.

The military says it has rescued more than 700 people in the past week in an offensive against the Islamist group.

The women said several were killed in the stoning, but they did not know how many.

'Pregnant'

Others were killed inadvertently by the military during the rescue operation, they added.

Soldiers did not realise "in time that we were not the enemies" and some women and children were "run over by their trucks", said survivor Asama Umoru.

The survivors said that when they were initially captured, the militants had killed men and older boys in front of their families before taking women and children into the forest.

Some were forced into marriage.

One woman, Lami Musa, 27, said she had avoided that fate.

"When they realised I was pregnant, they said I was impregnated by an infidel [her husband] and they killed him," she said.

'Skeletal bodies'

Ms Musa quoted the militants as telling her that "once you deliver in a week's time we will marry you to our commander".

"I delivered at night and we were rescued by the soldiers the following morning," Ms Musa added, in tears.
Other survivors said the militant Islamists never let them out of their sight - not even when they went to the toilet.

"They didn't allow us to move an inch," one of the freed women, Asabe Umaru, told Reuters news agency. "We were kept in one place. We were under bondage."

One woman described how they were fed just one meal a day.

"We were fed only ground dry maize in the afternoons. It was not good for human consumption," Cecilia Abel told Reuters.

"Every day, we witnessed the death of one of us and waited for our turn," said Umaru, a 24-year-old mother of two.

Some of the children were "just little skeletal bodies with flaps of skin that make them look like old people", Associated Press reporter Michelle Faul told the BBC after visiting the camp where survivors were staying.

A doctor, Muhammad Amin Suleiman, said many severely malnourished babies and children had been put on intravenous drips at a clinic.

The women and children travelled for three days on pick-up trucks from the vast Sambisa forest where they were rescued, to the camp in the city of Yola, where they arrived on Saturday night.

Through interviews, officials have determined that almost all those rescued are from Gumsuri, a village near the town of Chibok, the Associated Press news agency reports.

It does not appear that any of those released are from the group of more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram a year ago in a mass abduction that led to worldwide protests calling for the girls' release.

Thousands have been killed in northern Nigeria since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009 to create an Islamic state.

In February, Nigeria's military, backed by troops from neighbouring countries, launched a major offensive against the Islamist fighters, recapturing most of the territory Boko Haram had taken in the previous year.

Their last remaining hideouts are believed to be in the Sambisa forest, which surrounds a reserve of the same name.

'Two blindfolded men in convoy'- The BBC's Stephanie Hegarty reports from Lagos

Boko Haram at a glance:

• Founded in 2002, initially focused on opposing Western-style education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
  
• Launched military operations in 2009
  
• Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, hundreds abducted, including hundreds of schoolgirls
  
• Seized large area in north-east Nigeria, where it declared a caliphate
  
• Joined so-called Islamic State, now calls itself IS's "West African province"
  
• Regional force has now retaken most of the captured territory
  
• Group split in August after rival leaders emerged
  

Whiskers wrote:Very good news and how happy their families must be, but I can't help wondering what horrors have they been through in those 3 years of captivity?

 What happened to the 276 kidnapped Girls?

Nigeria Owo church attack: Blood on the altar

Grace was being shared when the first shot rang out. For dozens of worshippers at the St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, south-western Nigeria, the Lord's prayer turned into a viaticum - the final prayer.

The armed men that burst through the church doors around 11:30 on Sunday set off dynamite that had congregants scampering to escape the explosions.

As worshipers rushed for the other two exits in the chaos, they were met by more armed men, followed by more shots and loud bangs.

At the end, eyewitnesses say at least 50 bodies - some of them children - were left strewn across the church floors, while many more were injured.

There was blood on the altar, blood on the floor, bodies on the pews.

It is still not clear how many people have died and or were injured. But the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ondo says the church, which is one of the biggest parishes in Ondo state, can hold up to 1,200 people. It was full at the time of the attack.

A local resident describes how he was informed of his brother's death

"They killed to their satisfaction before leaving," chorister John Nwovu told the BBC.
He hid in the sacristy with others while the attack - which lasted for around 30 minutes - was going on and said he was only saved by God's grace.
An explosion blew up the ceiling above him, burying him and several others, he said.
They bore the weight and pain in silence while the killers went about, picking off worshippers hiding under the pews.
Mr Nwovu's brother, also a chorister, was shot in the leg and is recovering in hospital.
"I don't think the shock of what I saw will leave me for the rest of my life," he said.

Dynamite residue still litters the church, while the vestry - where many hid - bears testimony to the chaos.
Shoes, bible pages soaked in blood, purses and other personal belongings are still scattered about.
For members of this quiet community in Ondo state, the church was more than a place of worship - it has been a part of their lives since birth.

This photo was taken inside the church after the attack /BBC/Olumide Owaduge

This was a surprise attack. Owo is relatively peaceful and has been spared the wanton killings that seem to happen weekly across Nigeria.
Attacks on churches have happened before - it was a tactic of Islamist militant group Boko Haram, but the gruesomeness of this attack has shocked many.
This was a congregation of the aged and the very young. Worshippers had turned up in their Sunday best for the Pentecost service, which marks the birth of the church and official end of the Easter season.

"I saw entire families being wiped away, friends, relatives, those I knew," said Mr Nwovu.
For orthodox Nigerian Christians, first Sundays of the month are also significant. They are usually full of colourful thanksgivings led by families and parish groups and this would have been no different.
Folake Oni, 56, doesn't remember how she survived the attack. She only recalls exiting the church and being taken to hospital.
Her daughter Elizabeth Ademiluka told the BBC that her mother was traumatized but physically well.
On Monday, a sombre mood engulfed the town, with hundreds of anxious people at the hospitals and dozens more at the church.
People are walking about with a blank stare, wondering how their lives have changed forever.
There is still a crowd at two local hospitals where volunteers rushed to donate blood after the attack.
But more is still needed, said Nigeria's medical association, which has urged people to donate more at local hospitals.
Everyone seems to know someone inside the hospital where many are critically injured and some are fighting for their lives.
Many of the survivors at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Owo have been shot in both legs, some might never walk again.
There is a palpable outrage, plenty of which has spilled onto social media, where people followed the attack with shock as it happened.
The pictures are too gory for many Nigerians, even those numbed by the numerous deaths witnessed in the country.
Some of the children killed were unrecognisable - the high-calibre bullets scattered flesh and bones, a medical worker at the FMC told the BBC.
"The audacity of Nigeria to take my parents from me. I will always hate this country!!!!! It's a promise!," said one Twitter user.

The outrage over the killings has been further exacerbated by pictures of President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and other members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) eating at a state dinner hosted by the president, hours after the attack.

In one of the pictures, the politicians dressed in colourful robes are smiling. A convention to elect the party's presidential candidate for next year's general elections is underway in Abuja.

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Mr Buhari has released a statement condemning the attack, an action many Nigerians are now used to, given the frequency of such killings.
"Only fiends from the nether region" could have done this "dastardly act", the statement read.
Elected on promises to end insecurity, Nigeria's security challenges have worsened under Mr Buhari, who is winding down to his tenure's end next May.

Armed gangs which operate across the country are rarely brought to book and no-one has any hopes that the killers of Owo will pay for the atrocity.

All eyes are now on the state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, who has vowed to hunt down the killers.
This incident will feel personal for Mr Akeredolu, as he comes from Owo.
He is one of the southern governors who have been very critical of the activities of herdsmen, who generally come from the north, and open grazing in Nigeria. He caused a huge furore last year when he ordered them to leave the forests in the state, accusing them of criminality.
There is nothing that links herders to the church attack, who are easily scapegoated for such killings. However, they have been accused of similar attacks in the past, especially in central Nigeria, where the conflict between herders and farmers for land has been especially fierce.
The killers wore khaki trousers used by many of Nigeria's many paramilitary groups, said Mr Nwovu, so they could have been anyone.

The attack comes exactly a week after the head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was abducted, along with two other clerics in the south-east of the country, and freed after paying $240,000 (£190,000).
Also, two weeks ago, two Catholic priests were kidnapped in Katsina, President Buhari's home state in the north of the country. They have not been released.
This might feel like a new wave of attacks on the church, and worshippers like Mr Nwovu are shaken.
"I can't go back to church with what I saw, for now," he said.
"But I can't stop worshipping God," he added.

Additional reporting by the BBC's Olumide Owaduge in Owo

Read more on the security situation in Nigeria:

• Why Nigeria wants to jail those who pay ransoms
  
• Five reasons why Nigerians don't feel safe
  
• Nigeria train hostage photos bring relief and pain
  
• Outrage at Nigeria's brazen bandit attacks