Forces of darkness

Girl forced to watch father, brother
killed by Boko Haram tells her story on may 21, 2014 at 11:16 pm in interview Deborah Peter You might also like Deborah Peter was 12 years old when gunmen from
the Nigerian terrorist group burst into her home in
northern Nigeria and shot dead her father, a Christian
pastor, and her 14-year- old brother Caleb, and then
forced her to lie with their corpses. She was attacked in 2011, well before Boko Haram’s
abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls and young
women in April finally drew international attention and
condemnation. Peter is from Chibok, the same small town where the
girls were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group,
whose name is interpreted as “Western education is
forbidden.” “I decided to tell the world my story when the Chibok
girls were taken because everyone needs to know
how horrible Boko Haram is,” Peter said in a
statement. “They kill innocent people who never hurt
them.”#DeborahNPeter Peter, now 15 and attending a Christian school in rural
Virginia, came to the US Capitol to recount her ordeal
for leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Peter sat in the front row as House committee
members, led by Chairman Ed Royce, a California
Republican, pressed officials from the State and
Defence Departments to do more to aid the Nigerian
government in the effort to rescue the abducted girls
and young women and step up efforts to help the Nigerian military fight Boko Haram. So far, Nigeria’s human rights record and history of
official corruption have hindered U.S. efforts to assist
the country’s military in fighting the terrorists. As a young woman whose story helps rivet world
attention, Peter’s appearance was reminiscent of
those by Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the face
by the Pakistani Taliban for her efforts to encourage
girls to seek an education. Peter spoke softly, without evident emotion, in
recounting the day she lost her father and brother and
then fled her home and subsequently her country. Her father had been threatened before by members of
Boko Haram, beaten up and told to abandon his
ministry, she said. On December 22, 2011, gunmen
came to her home around 7pm, once more demanding
that he renounce his faith. “My dad refused to deny his faith,” she said. After he was shot, the gunmen debated what to do
about her brother, with one of them saying he should
be spared because of his youth, she said. Another
man said he should be killed so he won’t grow up to
become a pastor, she said. Peter said she thinks her father, who had been
breathing, died when he saw Caleb shot twice in the
head. ”I was in shock, so I didn’t know what was happening”
as the gunmen forced her to lie down alongside her
father’s and brother’s corpses, she said. That’s where
Nigerian soldiers found her the next day, she said. Asked at the news conference what she now thinks of
Boko Haram, Peter replied haltingly that “I think they
are bad” before her voice trailed off. Peter said she would have remained in peril in
Chibok, where Boko Haram would condemn her
because her mother had converted from Islam to
Christianity. Another pastor — himself later killed by
Boko Haram — paid to get her out of the region, and
a group called the Jubilee Campaign helped her come to the U.S., according to information she provided to
the House committee. She now attends the Mountain
Mission School, a Christian school in Grundy, a small
town in southwestern Virginia near the state’s border
with Kentucky. Her story has been advanced by Christian religious-
freedom advocates, who focus on Boko Haram as
anti-Christian in its terrorist activities. Earlier this
month, she spoke at the Hudson Institute in
Washington. In testimony to the committee, Sarah Sewall, the US
under secretary of state for civilian security,
democracy and human rights, said it would be wrong
to cast the Boko Haram threat primarily in sectarian
terms. “Certainly, Boko Haram has targeted Christians, and
Nigerian officials believe that 85 percent of the girls
kidnapped at Chibok are Christians, and have been
forced to convert to Islam after their kidnapping,” Ms
Sewall said. “We want to highlight, however, that
Boko Haram is a problem that affects Nigerians of every religion. Indeed, the majority of Boko Haram’s
estimated 4000 total victims to date have been
Muslim.”