The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on Friday condemned the attack and abduction of 121 students of the Bethel Baptist High School, Damishi, Kaduna.
Bandits had invaded the school on Monday at about 2am.
Twenty eight of the students were able to escape, however the bandits took 121 students into captivity.
USCIRF Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, in a statement said, “Religious freedom includes the freedom to attend religious schools and to learn and teach according to one’s beliefs.”
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad.
It also makes foreign policy recommendations to the US President, the Secretary of State and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion or belief.
The statement, as reported by Amazing Times, said, abductions like these undermined religious freedom in Nigeria and heightened sectarian tensions.
It noted that the attack on Bethel Baptist High School was the tenth mass school kidnapping in Nigeria since December 2020.
Davie said Kaduna State had seen significant criminal and intercommunal violence in the past year that had included several attacks on churches and religious leaders.
The statement said the Nigerian government had recently requested U.S. military assistance to address growing criminal violence in the country.
“It is unfathomable that these attacks are still happening in Nigeria with impunity,” said USCIRF Commissioner Tony Perkins.
“It has been over four years since USCIRF’s Religious Prisoner of Conscience Leah Sharibu was abducted in a similar attack, and she continues to be held hostage because she will not abandon her faith.
“The United States must encourage the Nigerian government to do more to rescue these children and prevent future school abductions”, the statement urged.
The USCIRF, in its 2021 Annual Report, recommended that the U.S. Department of State redesignate Nigeria as a “country of particular concern CPC” for engaging in and tolerating ongoing, systematic, and egregious violations of international religious freedom.
The statement recalled that the State Department designated Nigeria as a CPC for the first time in December 2020.
USCIRF also recommended that the State Department redesignate Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) as “entities of particular concern,( EPCs).”
Additionally, USCIRF has produced recent analyses on religious freedom conditions in Nigeria and violations committed by militant Islamist groups in northern Nigeria.
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