Photo credit: BBC
A Nigerian Imam who gained international attention fr saving 262 Christians during an outbreak of violence has died at the age of 90.
The man, AbubakaAbdullahi, had been suffering from a heart condition and was being treated in a hospital. Unfortunately, he died last Thursday.
The year was 2018, and Abdullahi had seen many desperate, frightened families fleeing into his village in Plateau state, Nigeria.
It was then that he decided to risk his life to save theirs.
The people he saved had come from a neighbouring village. They were fleeing about 300 armed men – supposedly Muslim cattle herders. Their attackers were shooting sporadically and burning down their homes.
Some of those who managed to escape ran towards the mainly Muslim neighbourhood nearby, where the imam lived.
He immediately came to their aid and took th3e wommen to his own house to hide them. He then took the men to his mosque.
When the attackers heard that the villagers heard that the villagers had fled towards the mosque, they demanded that the imam bring them out.
He made a life-saving decision.
Not his own life, but those of the 262 Christians!
Along with some others in the Muslim community, he began to cry and wail, asking the attackers to leave.
And, miraculously, the herders left, but not until they set two nearby churches ablaze.
The herders were largely from the mainly Muslim ethnic Fulani community, while the farmers were mostly Christians from the Beron ethnic group.
