By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
ABUJAH, NIGERIA (Worthy News)-- Islamists of the insurgent Boko Haram kidnapped more than 100 girls, according to Morning Star News.
In Borno state, Boko Haram gunman abducted at least 129 girls who were in their dorms at the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, one of only three Christian enclaves in the predominantly Muslim state. The gunmen also looted homes and shops and then set them all ablaze.
A government spokesman said the girls were herded onto trucks only after a shoot out with soldiers guarding the school, but Sunday Aimu told Morning Star News that the insurgents encountered no resistance.
"The Boko Haram gunmen carried out the attack unchallenged," Aimu said. "The town's market was burned down, houses were destroyed and food items and vehicles were taken away by them."
The Rev. Titus Pona, chairman of Borno State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told Morning Star News that most of the kidnapped girls were members of Church of the Brethren in Nigeria.
"We have been praying for the kidnapped girls and hoping that God will intervene," said Pona. "So far, God has answered our prayers as 20 of the girls have escaped from their captors and have returned safely."
Paul Gadzama, a director with Relief Missions, told Morning Star News that the kidnappings were only the latest in a series of attacks despite Nigeria's soldiers having been put on alert.
"We have a situation in which Muslim gunmen at will storm Christian villages in this part of Nigeria and kill Christians at will, and yet there is a state of emergency that had been declared and soldiers are in the state."