Today, a national demonstration is being held in Niger to protest the violence of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, reported Fides.
In a statement issued to the press late Friday evening, the UN Security Council condemned “in the strongest terms” the continued escalation of attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram. In the week leading up to the statement, deadly attacks took the lives of many civilians in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.
In a message from the Groupe de Réflexion et d’Actions des Cadres Chrétiens Catholiques du Niger (GRAC Niger) sent to Fides, the organization stressed today’s march is intended to draw attention to the fact that the Boko Haram activity now threatening Niger has the same roots as the waves of Anti-Christian violence which affected Nigeria last month.
The same forces which attacked the border town of Diffa, the message claims, are targeting Niger.
“Let us not be misled, brothers and sisters of Nigeria,” it says, “that those who destroyed our churches and our infrastructures, are those against whom we march.»
The terrorists’ motives, it adds, stem from «intolerance, hatred and exclusion.”
In the message, GRAC Niger recalls the exhortation addressed to Nigerians in 2014, which states: “That which unites us from the cultural, political and religious point of view, is far stronger than that which divides us.»
That bond, the exhortation says, is love for their homeland, that despite differences, they are very proud of their roots.
