Nigeria: concern over the resurgence of kidnappings of priests
In Nigeria, the kidnappings of priests are increasing in this year 2022. The kidnappers seem to think that the Church has the means to pay large ransoms.
(illustration photo) AP - Rahaman A Yusuf
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
In Nigeria, members of the clergy are increasingly targeted for kidnapping.
The kidnapping of a Catholic priest and a seminarian on Friday August 12 in Abia State is the latest in a series of similar incidents targeting clerics, which have sometimes resulted in dramas.
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With our correspondent in Lagos,
Liza Fabbian
What may have looked like isolated incidents are becoming a recurrent and worrying phenomenon.
In July, a reverend from Kaduna State was killed by the men who abducted him along with another cleric who was able to escape.
Two weeks earlier, a priest had already been shot dead by unidentified assailants while working in a vegetable garden, still in Kaduna state.
In the diocese of Sokoto too, religious and their domestic staff have disappeared.
But southern Nigeria is not spared: in Edo State, in Akwa Ibom State, clerics have also been kidnapped.
In June, the prelate of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was kidnapped after gunmen attacked his vehicle.
He was released two days later, in exchange for a ransom of 200,000 euros according to him.
After his release, the prelate also explained that his captors had acted "
with the complicity of the security forces
" posted on the road.
Other religious have suffered the same fate in previous months, suggesting a strategy of the kidnappers, who no doubt believe that their churches have the means to pay large sums to have them released.
The Catholic Church in Nigeria had however affirmed, in 2021, that it refused to pay in the event of kidnapping, so as not to encourage these criminal practices.
► To read also: In Nigeria, the scourge of kidnapping is very expensive for society
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Nigeria
Crime
Religion