Pastor Barnabas lives in a displacement camp in Nigeria. Everyone there is a Christian who has fled Islamic militant violence.
Thousands of people live in the same camp as Pastor Baranbas: an informal settlement for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Benue State, northern Nigeria. “Each and every one you are seeing here, we are all Christians,” says Pastor Barnabas. “We are displaced because of violence.”
It’s one of many similar IDP camps across sub-Saharan Africa, where 16.2 million Christians have been forcibly displaced by violence and conflict. It’s an astounding number. But most of the world doesn’t even know it’s happening.
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“Millions of Christians are displaced, here in Nigeria,” says Pastor Barnabas. “Millions of Christians are displaced in Africa. The news doesn’t care about it, politicians don’t talk about it, governments don’t talk about it, global politics don’t talk about it. Nobody talks about it.”
“A terrible place to live”
Pastor Barnabas gets to his tent, and stoops down to show it. Even though he, his wife Joy and their family have lived in the camp for almost five years, their home is made of whatever materials were available – mostly palm leaves and mosquito nets. “It’s smaller than a double mattress,” Pastor Barnabas says. It’s far too small for a large family of eight.
Pastor Barnabas lives with his wife Joy and children in appalling conditions in the IDP camp
“The IDP camp is a terrible place to live,” says Pastor Barnabas bluntly. “We don’t have good hygiene, we don’t have water, we don’t have toilets. Many people are dying. Only last week, as I am talking, we lost eight people in this IDP camp.”
People wouldn’t live in a camp like this if they had any other choice. They only live here because it’s too dangerous outside the camps. Because of the horrendous persecution that has displaced them.
An appalling attack
Last year, and for many years, more Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined. The same violent persecution is quickly spreading across other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, as Islamic extremist ideology spreads: as well as these murders, huge numbers of believers are injured, abducted, sexually assaulted or forced to flee from their homes. Pastor Barnabas can easily empathise with the people in the camp who have faced this violence. He’s been through exactly the same experience himself.
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“I was on the farm with my brother, Everen, and his wife, Friday,” he remembers. “We heard shooting. We saw people running in different directions. We didn’t know what was happening.”
Pastor Barnabas encourages believers in the IDP camp
The community was being attacked by Fulani militants, a group of Islamic extremists who are responsible for many of the violent attacks in north central and central Nigeria. Pastor Barnabas and his family tried to run, but Everen and Friday didn’t manage to escape. “My brother was shot by the militants, and my brother’s wife was also shot and killed by the militants,” he says. It’s been almost five years, but the pain of loss is still raw.
Why were they attacked?
The motive of Islamic militant violence like this is clear: to destroy as many Christians and Christian communities as possible. “This attack is because we are Christians,” says Pastor Barnabas. “When they come to attack us, they call us ‘capari’. It means you don’t have any religion.” The militants don’t value their lives, because they are considered infidels.
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The effects of this persecution are long-lasting. As well as the terrible loss of life, it removes any means of getting an income, or future opportunities for the children of affected believers. It threatens the future of the church. “Now, I have lost everything that I had. Everything in my home and village was burned,” says Pastor Barnabas. “I cannot take care of my children. I cannot feed them. Most of the men go looking for work to do, in order to get daily food. But yet, it will not be enough for one meal.”
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