According to Para-Mallam, the crowd numbered around 5,000 and included both Catholics and Protestants. Together, he said, they marched peacefully and prayerfully, ending in front of the Jos city governor’s office. Archbishop Matthew Ishaya Audu of Jos and several Catholic priests also took part in the march and rally, according to Para-Mallam.
The gathering was organized with the help of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)a coalition of Nigerian churches and Christian groups that includes the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
Para-Mallam said the aim of the protest was to “mourn in solidarity” with the devastated communities as well as to show them that the Church “cares” and “identifies with them in the moment of suffering and mourning “.
A secondary goal of the gathering, Para-Mallam said, was to “bring the Church of the Plateau to unite and speak with one voice on issues of social justice” and to “raise national and global awareness about the Christmas attack. » »
Para-Mallam said Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang addressed the crowd at the rally and was “sympathetic and understanding and spoke well of the pains of his people.”
Mutfwang condemned the attacks shortly after they occurred in a Declaration of December 26 in which he said: “It has indeed been a bloody Christmas for us. »
“He promised to take our concerns to the President and pledged to work with him to end the killings in Plateau State,” Para-Mallam said.
Despite the governor and president Expressing support for affected communities, several religious freedom advocates criticized the government’s lack of response to the increase in terrorist attacks.
Maria Lozano, a representative of the papal relief group Aid to the Church in Need, told CNA after the attacks that tangible government support was largely absent after the Christmas massacre and that a “lack of government response” to the over the years has worsened the situation. situation in the region. The lack of government support, Lozano said, has forced Christian churches to take “the primary responsibility of providing aid.”
Para-Mallam asked Christians outside Nigeria to help him by offering prayers, pleas and humanitarian intervention.
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“We also want our fellow believers to encourage policymakers to encourage the Nigerian government to do more to stop killings in general and those targeting Christians in particular,” he said.
For several years now, religious freedom advocates have criticized the U.S. government for not including Nigeria in the State Department’s agenda.Countries of particular concern” list, which some consider America’s most effective tool for encouraging foreign governments to fight persecution at home.
“There is no justification why the State Department has not designated Nigeria or India as a country of particular concern,” said Abraham Cooper, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Frederick Davie, vice-president, in a press release. Statement of January 4.
Cooper and Davie cited the Christmas massacre as “the latest example of deadly violence against religious communities in Nigeria.”
Speaking on “EWTN News every night» On Monday, Davie said the decision to remove Nigeria from the list was “particularly” concerning and a “huge mistake”.
