{"id":251,"date":"2025-12-06T09:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T07:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=251"},"modified":"2026-05-17T02:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T23:16:48","slug":"nigeria-relentless-attacks-on-christians-spark-outrage-over-priests-kidnapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/nigeria-relentless-attacks-on-christians-spark-outrage-over-priests-kidnapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria: Relentless Attacks on Christians Spark Outrage Over Priest\u2019s Kidnapping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to the <strong>chancellor of the Nigerian Catholic Ministry<\/strong>, Father <strong>Isaac Augustino<\/strong>, all men and women of goodwill are called upon <strong>&#8220;to pray for the safe and swift release of our priest and others from the kidnappers&#8217; hands.&#8221;<\/strong> This statement was made on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8220;Through the intercession of Our Lady, the Mother of all priests and our mother, may our brother, as well as the others, return to us safe and sound,&#8221;<\/strong><\/em> Augustino wished.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry did not disclose whether a ransom was demanded, and Nigerian officials have not yet identified the kidnappers. A report by the <em>Daily Post<\/em> newspaper stated that the abduction has caused &#8220;panic&#8221; in the Catholic community of Kaduna, amid the prevailing climate of fear in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Ezema&#8217;s kidnapping adds to the list of clergy targeted by armed groups in recent months, intensifying concerns over the security of religious institutions in the country. Another Nigerian priest, the Anglican <strong>Venerable Edwin Atchi<\/strong>, was <strong>strangled<\/strong> by his kidnappers last week. Atchi, also serving in Kaduna State, had been abducted along with his wife and daughter by a group of unknown armed men on October 28.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly before the announcement of Atchi&#8217;s death, the kidnappers released photos of the priest, his wife, and several other Christian hostages. The President of Nigeria, <strong>Bola Tinubu<\/strong>, is facing harsh criticism for failure to take action against jihadists and bandits and declared a <strong>national state of emergency<\/strong> last week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> accused Tinubu&#8217;s government of imposing a <strong>&#8220;Christian genocide&#8221;<\/strong> and threatened to send American forces with <strong>&#8220;fully armed weapons&#8221;<\/strong> earlier in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The abduction of Nigerian priest Emmanuel Ezema amid rising attacks on clergy intensifies fears over religious violence, drawing calls for prayers and urgent action amid growing insecurity in Kaduna state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[202,198,165,166,200,201,203],"nfg_topic":[136],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-benedict-edwin-attsi","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-christianity","tag-christianophobia","tag-emmanuel-ezema","tag-ishek-augustine","tag-nigeria-kaduna","nfg_topic-christianity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}