This story was originally published in ‘opendoorsuk’ on16 September 2024.
After three attacks on his community, Pastor Soré fled with his family, joining two million people in Burkina Faso who have been displaced by extremist violence. Pastor Soré’s situation seems hopeless, but your prayers and gifts are providing him and his family with a vital lifeline.
It was the third Islamic militant attack on his village in Burkina Faso that made Pastor Soré take his family and flee as refugees.
During the first attack, all the men ran for the surrounding countryside – knowing they were most likely to be killed. “The terrorists took people’s money and all the goods they could carry, then left,” Pastor Soré remembers.
The second attack was much, much worse. After the men had run away, the extremists raped the women in their homes. But when the attackers returned a third time, they burned everything they could, forcing the entire village to flee for good.
In less than a day, Pastor Soré and his family became refugees among the two million people displaced in Burkina Faso. Many are Christians, driven out of their homes by extremists. “When the terrorists come to churches and find Christians, they tell them that Christianity’s time is over, and they should turn to the Islamic religion,” Pastor Soré says. “So, they warn Christians to stop conducting services. After warning, when they come back later and find you in the church, they kill you.”
And it’s not just Burkina Faso that has seen this surge in extremist violence. Countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have seen a huge increase in violence from Islamic extremists groups, who are attacking and killing Christians, as well as driving them from their homes and communities.
courtesy: https://www.opendoorsuk.org/