(Open Doors) Our Africa services team is sounding an alarm as persecution against Christians continue in the midst of COVID-19 food shortages. As extremists target Christians and exploit the pandemic to recruit youth into their ranks, believers are struggling to survive the severe food shortages, denial of government relief and lack of medical care—all combining for a potentially disastrous powder keg-situation on the world’s second-largest continent.
‘Sometimes we go to sleep without any food’: Rose’s story
Just three months ago, Rose was a pastor’s wife and expecting mother of two girls in the town of Nbra Zongo in northern Nigeria’s Plateau State. That was before April 7, 2020 when her husband Matthew was shot and butchered by Muslim Fulani extremists. Today, she is a widow and mother of three daughters living in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns and severe food shortages.
“Severe hunger came, and we had no food,” she says. “There was no money to buy any food. We couldn’t trade anything for money, because the markets were closed. I don’t even have the strength to do rigorous work to feed my children.