Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, has asked God to intervene in the security situation in Nigeria.
He said the prayer while reacting to Saturday’s killing of about 43 rice farmers in Zabarmari village in Jere Council of Borno State, North East Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorists
The pope prayed on December 2 at the end of the Weekly General Audience, streamed live virtually from his library in The Vatican.
The pope lamented the killing of the farmers some of who were beheaded while working on their farms.
“I want to assure my prayers for Nigeria where blood has unfortunately been spilled once more in a terrorist attack,” he said.
“Last Saturday, in the North East of the country, more than 100 farmers were brutally killed. “May God welcome them in His peace and comfort their families, and convert those who commit similar atrocities which gravely offend His name.”
Pope Francis said God still loved everybody, including the terrorists despite their crime against humanity.
In his latest video released on Tuesday, which has now gone viral, the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, said 78 farmers were killed as against the 43 earlier reported.
Shekau, who is wanted by the Nigerian government for the atrocities perpetrated by sect, claimed the farmers were killed for handing over one of their members to the Nigerian military.
Since Boko Haram began its insurgency in Borno State in 2009, before it spread to their parts of the northeast and beyond, the Islamic militants have killed at least 30,000 people while several, displaced from their ancestral communities, now live in decrepit internally displaced persons camps spread across the zone.