A pastor, his daughter, and more than a dozen churchgoers were kidnapped in an attack by a team of gunmen in the Kaduna state of Nigeria on Sunday that left one person dead.
Rev. Zakariah Ido, 11 girls, and five men were among those kidnapped in the early morning hours on Sunday. Sources have indicated that 20 gunmen attacked.
According to an online Nigerian newspaper called TheCable, the gunmen surrounded the church while choir members were practicing. “It was at about 12:30 midnight. We had combined choir practice in the church with other neighboring communities. We normally hold the combined choir practice from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.,” the witness said. “Everybody was terrified but there was no [way] we could run because they had already surrounded the church.”
The gunmen demanded everyone’s phones and asked where to find the pastor, according to Pastor Nath Waziri, the district church council secretary. Parishioners showed them the pastor’s home, where he, his daughter, and several others were abducted. During the attack, one of the church members was killed.
“We are helpless because there’s nothing we can do other than to report to the police when such incidents happen,” another eyewitness said. “We have no arms and we cannot stand them, we are just at their mercy because they are well armed and they always come in large…
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