This May 14, Leah Sharibu should have been enjoying the fruits of a college education and spending her 22^{Dakota del Norte} birthday with her family. Instead, she’s living her seventh year in Boko Haram captivity somewhere in Nigeria because she refused to renounce her Christian faith.

Her advocates across the globe mobilized a time of prayer last week. They urged the world not to forget about the woman who was kidnapped at age 14 by Nigeria’s most notorious Muslim extremist terrorists.

“Leah was also a schoolgirl who took education seriously. . . and actually desired to be a medical worker, a nurse or a medical doctor,” said Gideon Para-Mallam, president of the Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation. “But all of those dreams are shattered right now in captivity with Boko Haram.”

Nigeria has emerged as the world’s prime killing field for Christians. Some 4,000 Christians are killed there every year, according to Global Christian Relief, more than the rest of the world combined. And in the past two years, 9,814 Christians were killed, GCR says.

Since 2014, Boko Haram has captured 1,700 children in 17 separate instances of mass abductions, Amnesty International ha informado. In 2018, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 mostly Muslim girls—along with Sharibu, a Christian—from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi in northeast Nigeria. Five of the girls died.

A month later, Boko Haram publicado all the captives except Sharibu. At the moment the captives were being loaded back into transport for the return trip to Dapchi, Sharibu refused to renounce her Christianity to become a Muslim, according to CNN.

Sharibu’s mother, Rebecca Sharibu told CNN that Leah was a hard-working teenager who loved going to church and singing in her choir. SaharaReporters published reports that Sharibu has been forced into one or two marriages to Boko Haram leaders while in captivity and has had two children.

Para-Mallam told El Informe Roys (TRR) he first learned of Sharibu’s situation by watching the news of the other girls’ release into the waiting arms of their parents. The newscaster caught an image of Rebecca Sharibu still waiting.

“Then Leah Sharibu’s mother slumped,” Para-Mallam said. “I clearly heard from God that you need to stand up and do something for Leah.”

Para-Mallam, who is also a leader in the global Lausanne movement for missions, reached out to Sharibu’s parents and offered his advocacy. Since then, he has been trying to appeal to the Nigerian government, foreign governments and Christians everywhere who will listen.

“I think it’s an indictment on the Nigerian state if you can allow your citizens to have clashes for nearly two decades and you’re not able to do something to stop those clashes,” Para-Mallam said. “But we will not give up. We will continue to make our case.”

Para-Mallam spoke to TRR from his home in Jos, Nigeria, where days earlier gunshots were heard in his neighborhood.

“I’m granting this interview in my home and just relying on God,” he said. “Even in the course of this interview, I had to think about that situation because of the powerful explosion that went on.”

Terrorism in Nigeria

At more than 232 million, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with the population evenly split between Muslim and Christian, according to Puertas abiertas. Extremist terrorist groups have overpowered the under-resourced Nigerian government to attack mostly vulnerable farming communities in the north, many of which are Christian, according to the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

In 2025, Open Doors ranked Nigeria number seventh in the world for persecution of Christians, as Fulani herdsmen have moved south into the country’s farming belt and massively displaced Christian farmers there. 

April was a particularly bloody month in Nigeria, TRR previamente reportado. On Palm Sunday alone, Muslim Fulani militias killed 56 people in Plateau state in the central part of the country.

During the TRR interview, Para-Mallam – who lives in Plateau state – got a call from a pastor who narrowly escaped one of those April attacks that killed 51 of his church members.

“The church in Nigeria, I must say, it’s a praying church,” he said. “The church may be disturbed, harassed, tormented, but the church is fearless.”

Global advocacy

Three thousand miles away in Manchester, England, Mark Peacock, president of Kerygmos, a tech-centered advocacy group, agrees. Peacock joined Para-Mallam on the Zoom call with TRR about how Kerygmos is trying to raise awareness about Sharibu through their campaign #WhereIsLeahSharibu.

“The church in Nigeria is something special, something very, very special, because in some areas, they have nothing else, apart from to rely on God, nothing else, literally, everything stripped back,” Peacock said.

Boko Haram is getting more savvy with their technology, using armed drones and improvised explosive devices (IED) in its attacks, USAfricaOnline reported last month.  

But Kerygmos also uses technology—such as planting trackers on school kids—to counter the kidnappings, Peacock explained.

“In the west, there are millions and millions, billions of dollars in developing this technology,” Peacock said. “That technology would be so helpful and in some of the context of what Dr. Gideon is describing. So it’s my mission not only to tell the story and advocate, (but ask) what practical solutions can we bring in to stop these attacks happening.”

Kerygmos is gathering birthday cards for Sharibu to give to her family. He’s also leading Kerygmos in an effort to write to 600 members of the British Parliament to ask them to speak Leah’s name on May 14 and push for the British government to support her release.

“How much value did we put behind Leah’s situation. . . who has no life in front of her?” Peacock said. “This takes us to the real kind of heart of trying to understand that her life, her parents’ lives, are just as equal as anybody else; that Leah’s life opportunity, that Leah’s life potential is just as valuable as anybody else’s life opportunities and life potential.”

Peacock is urging Americans to write to their elected officials, too.

In 2021, President Joe Biden removed Nigeria from a designation of Country of Particular Concern, a status that the United States government still hasn’t restored. The International Religious Freedom Act allows the U.S. president to impose economic penalties for countries of concern.

Sharibu is from a community once evangelized by American missionaries, said Para-Mallam.

At the international Lausanne conference on missions in Seoul Korea in 2024, Para-Mallam spoke about persecution in Africa. He described Sharibu’s courage as thousands of missionaries from around the world cheered.

“Leah was asked to deny Christ to gain her freedom,” Para-Mallam said at Lausanne. “The good news is that Leah remains a secret believer even in captivity.”

Rebecca Hopkins es una periodista radicada en Colorado.