Christians from all denominations will attend services in Nigeria and the UK this Friday in remembrance of the victims of the Islamist group, Boko Haram...

The services, which will take place at Abuja's Ecumenical Centre and at St Marylebone Anglican Church in London, are being coordinated by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and Nigerian clergymen in London.

As well as commemorating the victims of violence and expressing solidarity, both services will highlight Boko Haram's targeted attacks on the Christian community.  Over 1000 people are thought to have died after Boko Haram launched a series of attacks in Bauchi, Yobe, Kano and Borno States of northern Nigeria last month. In the Borno State capital of Maiduguri, militants held a combined force of police and army units at bay for four days and seized numerous hostages, including several hundred Christians for use as human shields at their besieged headquarters.

Many Nigerians are concerned that high-level local and international interests may be behind the recurring religious violence. There is also continuing speculation over the source of Boko Haram's funding. The Associated Press recently reported that a captured Boko fighter had admitted receiving weapons and explosives training in Afghanistan.

Reverend Canon Ben Enwuchola, the London event host, said: "In 1987, I ferried victims of religious violence from the university in Kano to hospital. It is shocking that over twenty years later, Nigeria's cyclical religious violence has neither been recognised nor adequately addressed.  We hope by this event to raise greater awareness of the suffering of the Christian community of northern and central Nigeria, and are asking Christians in the UK to join us in prayers for the victims of the recent violence, and for lasting peace and reconciliation between the religious communities of northern and central Nigeria."  

Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW said: "CSW is privileged to stand in solidarity with the victims of violence in Nigeria and recognizes that their suffering has been compounded by the lack of national and international attention.   As we join together in prayer, we trust that those who suffer will be given a voice and that there might be an end to the violence that has torn at the heart of Nigeria".

NOTES TO THE EDITOR:

The London service will be held at 10 am at St Marylebone Church, 17 St Marylebone Road, London, NW1 SLT.  Nearest Tubes: Baker Street or Regents Park

• Kidnapped survivors of the siege of the Boko Haram camp have provided chilling testimonies of captured security service personnel being hacked to death and of Christian men being forced under the supervision of Boko Haram leader Yusuf Mohammed to choose between conversion or beheading.
  
• Boko Haram is thought to have been behind the violence in Bauchi Town in February 2009. Reports received by church leaders immediately prior to the outbreak of violence in Bauchi Town earlier this year warned of the growing presence in the area of militants that had allegedly received training in the use of explosives and armaments in Sudan.  In addition, victims of previous episodes of religious violence in Bauchi and Plateau States have frequently reported the presence of foreign jihadists from the neighbouring republics of Chad and Niger.
  
• Boko Haram is also suspected of having a hand in the "Cartoon Riots" that occurred in Borno in 2006 and occasioned the deaths of over 60 Christians and the destruction of over 50 churches.  None of the Christian victims of either attack have been compensated, although the sole Muslim victim, whose building in Maiduguri was destroyed in 2006 because a Christian had rented it, was compensated almost immediately.