Welcome back to our Arise Africa podcast, in partnership with the Association of Evangelicals in Africa. Arise Africa is a campaign which aims to bring sustained awareness to the problem of extremist violence and its impact on Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our aim is for you to gain an insight of what is happening in Africa.
In the previous episode, we had our brother from West Africa and he gave an overview the new Islamic insurgency that is under-reported. My name is Elia Jadi, I’m senior analyst in charge of religious freedom and belief for the Sub-Saharan African region. When it comes to persecution, particularly in the African region, we need to understand a number of factors, contributing factors affecting people who are experiencing whether stigmatisation or violence, physical violence or violent attack, targeting either buildings, churches, properties, but also the people themselves, a number of churches attacks.
So this is a kind of different variety or different form of persecution experience across Africa. The most obvious one and the most violent one is the violent persecution by radical Islamic group now operating across Sub-Saharan Africa and making Sub-Saharan Africa now the new epicentre of Islamic insurgency. So all the main two groups of the jihadist group are now operating from Africa, Islamic State, but also Al-Qaeda.
Well, people may not know because it’s under-reported violence or there is a lot of narrative tending to not recognise this kind of violence. When we consider the situation, Central African region, some countries are deeply affected. When we look at the map for the Central African region, we need to consider Northern Cameroon, for example, where Boko Haram, this Islamist group based in Nigeria, attacking, crossing the border and attacking communities in Northern Cameroon.
But we have also Central African Republic. This country experienced religious persecution for years. So because it has been an ongoing crisis for years, it’s like a forgotten crisis now.
Media are not paying attention. Media are not reporting about what is happening in Central African Republic. So media are more concerned by other crisis than what is happening there.
In addition to Central African Republic, we have also a DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the eastern part of the country, there we have one group called ADF, the Allied Democratic Forces, which is affiliated to Islamic State, Islamic State Daesh in eastern DRC. So because of the presence of this Islamic group now, they are very active there, attacking Christian communities, particularly in rural areas where vulnerable communities, there’s no protection, attacking them and killing them.
When we look at what happened this year or more recently, hundreds of people have been killed by this Islamic group operating there. To give us another perspective, we are joined by Amora from Central Africa. She has firsthand experience dealing with the extreme violence across Central Africa.
I would say there’s been a slight increase from what I’ve observed, even though the stats might not show. Because if I take a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the violence mostly happens in the eastern DRC, particularly the provinces of the North Kivu and the Ituri, you would see there used to be what they call the triangle of death. That’s about 2017, 2018.
So there were attacks which could be traced along what they would call like a triangle. But if you check now, it has morphed. There is no shape again.
The attacks have spread to other areas which did not experience attacks. If you think, for example, the North Kivu province, there used to be attacks in the Beni territory. But now there are also attacks in the Lubero territory.
I think last week there was an attack in the village of Melia where about 30 persons, the ADF killed about 30 persons. Some years back you would not hear of an attack in the Lubero territory, but now it is happening. If you go to the Ituri province, you used to hear attacks around the Irumu territory.
But now there are attacks in the Mombasa territory as well. So if I take, for example, the DRC, the attacks have spread geographically. So maybe the number of those killed or the repetition of attacks may not be the same, but it has spread geographically.
Even in the case of the far north of Cameroon, where the Boko Haram is mostly active, I think I should point this out, it’s not the whole of Cameroon, it’s in the far north where we have the Boko Haram. Just like in the DRC, it’s not the whole of the DRC, it’s the eastern DRC. There are villages which used to be quiet, no attacks, but which are experiencing attacks today.
So based on that, I would say the attacks have increased. Now as to the reasons why, I would say the objective of these attackers has not changed from what we gathered on the field. When we speak to the Christians that are in these communities, when we get their testimonies, they will tell you we are attacked because we are Christians.
They attack us because they want us to convert. That is what they tell them when they attack them. So if the underlying motive has not changed, the tactics may change, the regularity of the attacks may change, but because the purpose is still the same, they always find a way to come back in one way or the other.
The Islamic extremists target the community with various deliberate tactics. Ilya shares how gender-based violence plays such a critical role. Gender violence is not only talking about how it’s affecting women, but how members of the community are particularly targeted because of their status.
So first, women. In all these areas affected by violence, women are particularly targeted, are particularly vulnerable to attacks, but also to rape. Young ladies, Christian women, are generally kidnapped.
And they are taken to camps by this armed Islamic group. They transform them into sex slaves. That’s one of the big issues affecting these areas, particularly in eastern DRC, but also it’s true in northern Cameroon.
And we experience the same issue, we observe the same issue in the Central African Republic. There was a case of this young man we met in the far north of Cameroon, where when the Boko Haram came to his community, they kidnapped him and his brothers. And then in a house nearby, they grabbed the man there and shot him and left the woman.
So in the far north of Cameroon, it’s really gender-specific. The men get killed, the women sometimes get kidnapped, or they get injured. But it’s not common to see that the Boko Haram kill the men.
They would most likely kidnap them or just injure them if they tried to protest. Let me paint this other picture. We went to visit a community of Christians who had been displaced.
And it was a church of about 200 or so people. But you could count the men with your hands. There were very few.
The rest of those within the church were women and children. And when you ask, where are the men? Why are the churches devoid of the men? They will tell you, either the men have been killed, or because the men know that they will be killed, they have fled to go to safer areas or to places where they can look for jobs to get some money to feed the family. So we experienced this.
And so even when attacks happen, sometimes the women will stay within the community, the men will go maybe up in the mountains because they know that they are the primary target of the Boko Haram. Now if you take a country like the Central African Republic, there, yes, men are killed, but then women particularly are being raped. And as a ministry also in the field, we accompany these women for medical care, because sometimes one of the biggest concerns for these women, especially for those who have experienced rape, is the fear of becoming sick.
When multiple people abuse you over time, you don’t know what kind of infection you have. And because of the lack of money, the lack of proper awareness, or even the lack of access to these medical facilities, most of them do not get the medical help they need. Some just stay at home and they can take one or two painkillers and stay like that.
Some experience bleeding, some have other symptoms. When we meet them, we take them to the hospital for them to have some checks. I just want to share, some of them really feel gratitude to God when they find out that they have no infection.
They are really grateful that God has answered them, because when they were experiencing this abuse in their minds, they were like, God, please let me not be infected. And when they do this test and they realise they were not infected, they are really grateful to God. And that’s how we see God at work in the lives of these Christians, in the small ways.
Sometimes we want to see God act in the magical way, Abracadabra, no more killing, no more attacks, no more violence. You know, it’s true biblically, the Bible says there would always be persecution. But even in the midst of this chaos, we do not lose sight of what God is doing.
In the lives of each individual in a small way. And the thing also is they do not lose sight of what God is doing. Because they pray that they will not be infected.
And when they realise that they are not infected, they say thank you to God. They are kidnapped for five days. And during these five days, they are abused, their bodies are used anyhow.
And they pray, God, I know you see, rescue me. And God rescues them. They are thankful to God.
They see God in the midst of their situation. And we also, as a ministry on the field, we look out for this and we thank God. It feels like drops in the ocean, but it is drops that matter for each of these individuals.
Most lives matter before God. As Amora mentioned, the spread of violent persecution is on the rise. And furthermore, the communities that experience the persecution don’t know how to deal with this issue.
As much as the situation may be tough, we see God is moving in the midst of this chaos in Central Africa. Psalm 46 is a powerful psalm of comfort that speaks of God as a refuge and strength amidst turmoil and a strong presence in the heart of trouble. God rescues them and sends us to stop the violence through the likes of our sister Amora.
Join us for part two of this conversation as we dive into this topic further and hear how we can respond and start the healing for our brothers and sisters.
Transcribed by TurboScribe
