Women’s group flourishes in Nigeria
![Iain Taylor](/media/images/Mugshot_jpg.2e16d0ba.fill-32x32.format-webp.webp)
Iain Taylor
On a warm afternoon, the ululation, drumming and singing of a choir of two-dozen women can be heard across Gan Gora, a tiny village in Nigeria. ‘We are happy you arrived safely,’ they sing in Hausa, welcoming visitors to the community branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Zangon Kataf, Kaduna. One song is from the book of Habakkuk: ‘Oh Lord, how long must I call for help, but you do not listen?’
The Guardian has reported how about 100 women dance regularly, including Rifkatu Dauda Kigbu, 53, hobbling on a fractured knee. This is a weekly meeting of zumunta mata, a fellowship of married women. Their visitors are zumunta mata members from an ECWA in Gonin Gora, a Kaduna suburb.
Nigeria: urgent plea after 500 abducted
![Iain Taylor](/media/images/Mugshot_jpg.2e16d0ba.fill-32x32.format-webp.webp)
Iain Taylor
Persecuted church agency Open Doors is calling upon the Nigerian President urgently to liberate the 500 or so mostly women and schoolchildren abducted by Islamist terrorists in the past few weeks.
In Gamboru Ngala, a market town in Borno State, 200 people were kidnapped when they were going to collect firewood. The other abduction, from Kaduna State in northern Nigeria, saw 280 students, some as young as eight years old, taken by gunmen on motorcycles.
Death toll rises following Nigeria Christmas massacre
![Iain Taylor](/media/images/Mugshot_jpg.2e16d0ba.fill-32x32.format-webp.webp)
Iain Taylor
The death toll in the Nigeria Christmas massacre has now risen to 238 with more bodies still being discovered across Plateau state, according to persecuted church agency Release International.
80 communities were affected and about 20,000 Christians were driven from their homes.