An American missionary kidnapped in Nigeria has been freed.
Rev. Phyllis Sortor, a member of the American Free Methodist Church, was freed by a gang of criminals on Friday according to a church statement.
“Early evening Nigeria time, Friday, March 6, Phyllis Sortor, Free Methodist missionary to Nigeria, was safely released into the care of authorities and Free Methodist church leaders,” noted David W. Kendall, for the Board of Bishops in a news release to The Christian Post Friday evening.
“It appears she was kidnapped by a criminal gang, and there is no evidence this event is associated with terrorism or religion. Free Methodist leaders express deep appreciation to all who prayed for Sortor’s safe return.”
The criminals had asked for $300,000 as a ransom but the church did not comment on whether any ransom had been paid for the missionary’s release.
Sortor had travelled the world as a minister for Christ with her husband until his death in 2008. After his death, she remained in Nigeria to focus on child care ministries.
An American missionary has been taken captive in Lagos, Nigeria.
Kogi state Police Commissioner Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi said that five men stormed the workplace of Rev. Phyllis Sortor and forced the woman out of the building. The kidnappers are demanding a ransom of 60 million Naira (about $300,000 U.S.).
The kidnapping took place Monday and while Lagos is away from the main areas of operation for Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, police officials could not say the kidnapping was not related to terrorism. They said it’s possible the group is connected in some way or could sell the woman to the terrorist outfit.
Sortor runs an organization that provides schools for nomadic children in Nigeria.
Commissioner Ogunjamilusi said that the attackers scaled a wall of the school and then fled into the nearby mountains.
Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has committed another kidnapping of women in Nigeria.
The group kidnapped 60 more girls despite reports they were agreeing to a ceasefire and the release of the last 200 girls still remaining from a raid on a school in Chibok in April.
“The insurgents are still in the area. They slit the throats of three men in Garta and abducted many young women. We also heard from residents of Waga that they killed two men and took 40 women away,” said Tizhe Kwada, a resident of Garta.
The Nigerian government had claimed a cease fire with the group was reached last week.
The BBC reported now Boko Haram is claiming there is no ceasefire and that talks between the extremists and the government will be continuing in neighboring Chad.
“If they are aware and they are in agreement that there is a ceasefire, I don’t think they would continue attacking innocent people and taking over places,” said Bulama Mali Gubio of the Borno Elders Forum.
It’s a little victory but a victory nonetheless.
Police and parents of a girl who had been kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria say she was freed earlier this week.
“She was found running in a village. She was in the bush for about four days. She’s still receiving medical attention,” a parent told Reuters news agency. The girl was found about 60 miles from the village of Chibok where she had been kidnapped with hundreds of other girls.
She is reported in stable condition at a hospital.
The military also reported they had killed a man who had been posting in videos as Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. The man was seen in videos threatening to sell the girls into slavery and mocking the United States. The military claims Shekau has been dead for a year but that Boko Haram leadership to keep rank and file in line has used lookalikes.
At least 200 girls remain captive and missing.
The terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are reportedly holding hundreds of women captive inside school buildings in various cities under their control.
A spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry says that the women are all below the age of 35 and are mostly in the city of Mosul. The kidnapping and captivity of the women is being reported to the Ministry through relatives who have escaped the terrorist group.
“We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them,” Kamil Amin told The Associated Press. “We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values.”
A U.S. official who spoke under condition of anonymity said that U.S. intelligence has confirmed the captivity of the women and that they are being placed into forced marriages with terrorist fighters.
One Iraqi lawmaker who escaped the region said that some of the women have been sold in the public square “in a slavery market.”
Israeli military officials reported carrying out over 100 airstrikes in the last 24 hours at Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip.
The new offensive is part of a potential offensive into the Gaza Strip. Israel has called up over 40,000 troops to the border along the Gaza Strip as military officials continue to meet with senior Israeli ministers.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the Israeli leadership has had enough of dealing with terrorists.
“We have repeatedly warned Hamas that this must stop and Israel’s defense forces are currently acting to put an end of this once and for all,” spokesman Mark Regev told Fox News.
The movements and air strikes, called “Operation Protective Edge”, reportedly plans to continue air strikes at Hamas positions over the next several weeks.
Hamas has fired nearly 300 rockets into Israel over the last few weeks including 100 on Monday. The attacks come amid increased tensions after the terrorist group kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers.
More than 60 girls who had been taken by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram escaped over the weekend and are now under the protection of the Nigerian government.
A local official in the Chibok area of Borno state told the Associated Press Monday that the girls were being held by a group of terrorists who attacked a military outpost. The girls escaped when the terrorists left to launch the attack on the base.
Officials say most of the girls are in good health but about a quarter had to be hospitalized because of infections and wounds. Several of the girls reported being beaten by their captors.
The girls reported they were not part of a larger group, meaning the terrorists have broken the girls up into smaller groups. Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to sell the girls into slavery if the government does not pay for their release.
Palestinians threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli police and military after the body of a Palestinian teen was found in the Jerusalem forest.
The rioting teens blocked Jerusalem’s light rail service and were driven back when Israeli defense forces responded to their assaults by firing rubber bullets at rock throwers.
Israeli investigators say they were called with a report of an Arab teen that was forced into a car and that a partially burned body was found in the woods a few hours later but say there is no evidence connecting the incidents, if a teen was actually forced into a car.
The investigators also say there is no evidence the dead teen was killed by Israelis and assert that it could be an attempt by Palestinian terror groups to deflect attention from the kidnapping and brutal murder of three Israeli teenagers by the terrorist group Hamas.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that authorities used tear gas on some of the protesters and that security in the area has been heightened. Police have also closed holy sites in the Old City to visitors because of rock throwing Palestinian youths.
A new CNN report shows that Islamic extremists are teaching kidnapped boys how to behead others “for the sake of God.”
CNN spoke to a young man who was able to escape his kidnappers from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the same group that is attempting to overthrow the governments of Syria, Iraq and Jordan.
The young man, called Mohammed, said that he was taken from his school when the terrorists stormed the building. The first thing they did was remove the female students from the room, saying it was forbidden for the young men to be in the same room with them. The terrorists then forced the boys into a truck and drove them into the desert.
“We were all so scared. On the way back, we were celebrating that we had finished our tests. We were excited to go home and see our families. We didn’t know why they took us,” Mohammed told CNN.
The terrorists then forced the children to watch videos of beheadings and were given instructions on how to kill prisoners by cutting off their heads. They were also trained in other methods of urban combat as if they were being prepared for the Iraq insurgency.
Mohammed escaped with other boys when classmates created a diversion.
“I was so happy when I got home. My mother had no idea that I had escaped. I was so excited to see her,” Mohammed said.
ISIS terrorists have told residents of the area there is now a bounty on Mohammed’s head.