| | Last Friday I received a call from my father in Liberia informing me about some bad news from Lofa County. Details were scarce, but the word was that fighting was taking place between the Christians and the Muslims and that several people had been killed and that churches and mosques were burned. As soon as I got home I tried calling my friends in Voinjama but could not get through. Finally the next morning I was able to reach my friend Ansu. This is what he told me...
Apparently a Christian girl in Konia was killed and her body was found near the mosque. The Lomas (a predominately animistic and Christian ethnic group) began questioning the Mandingos about the killing and things were tense, but they got the situation under control. Then a false rumor spread to Voinjama that the mosque in Konia (a town about an hour down the road from Voinjama) had been burned. So a bunch of Muslim youth began to attack Christian's houses and churches. The Free Pentecostal church was looted, and the Catholic compound was burned. About 20 people were injured and four killed. The UN eventually stepped in and the situation was put under control now. However, the atmosphere remain tense. Many people left the town and fled across the border to Guinea. No one I know was hurt, although Ansu's house was vandalized and some mattresses and personal effects were stolen. He said he was seized by the mob and they were threatening to kill him because he had left the Islamic faith, but a Loma man intervened and when the mob turned their attention to him, Ansu was able to escape. Ansu's met his wife and children as they were heading to Guinea. Most of the SP staff still in Voinjama have been taking shelter in the FOF building. He told me that through all this the Christians did not retaliate, and even turned back a group of Lomas from neighboring Lawalazu who were coming to fight the Muslim Mandingos. We need to pray that the Christians would be able to forgive those who did these terrible things, and that those who carried out these unprovoked acts of violence would be convicted and repent.
I am also thinking and praying about what can be done to bring more resolution to the underlying Loma/Mandingo conflict in the region. Unfortunately, they have turned this into a religious conflict, when the underlying issue is really control of land and resources. Oral histories tell us that the Loma and Mandingo in Lofa are really one people divided by language and culture. They are both apparently descendants of one man from the same ancestral town of Musadu in Guinea. Unfortunately the adoption of Islam by the Mandingos has caused many of them to feel superior to the Loma "kaflis" (infidels), further widening the divide between them. Thankfully the SP Community Health Evangelism program has helped to foster peace-building between the Mandingos and Lomas in such places as Samadu and Kpakumai, but so far there seems to have been little done to address this problem from a Christian perspective in Voinjama. The believers in Lofa County need our prayers more than ever.
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| | Posted 3/1/2010 10:23 PM - 105 Views - 2 eProps - 3 comments
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