{"id":5139,"date":"2025-01-02T08:07:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T08:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/"},"modified":"2025-01-02T08:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T08:07:05","slug":"christian-women-widowed-by-islamists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Women Widowed by Islamists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alimata&rsquo;s husband, Yacouba, was the assistant pastor at a church in Kounla. On August 25, 2024, Islamic terrorists came to their house looking for Christian men. They forced Yacouba and another man, bound and blindfolded, into the church at gunpoint. As militants hunted more Christians, Alimata and other women fled with their children. As they ran, they heard gunshots. &ldquo;I knew that they had killed my husband,&rdquo; Alimata said. While hiding, a woman named Fadima also heard the gunshots that killed her husband and 27 more men inside the church. &ldquo;Please pray for me as I am in trauma,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Pray that I will keep my faith in Christ. I can&rsquo;t even remember any Bible verses now.&rdquo; Another survivor saw the militants leave. &ldquo;The terrorists came out of the church and yelled and laughed a lot,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They shot their guns in the air in celebration that they had killed Christians.&rdquo; The women are receiving emergency housing and emotional care.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/burkina-faso\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Burkina Faso and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2767\/widows-and-families\/\" target=\"_blank\">Post a prayer for widows and families on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alimata&#8217;s husband, Yacouba, was the assistant pastor at a church in Kounla. On August 25, 2024, Islamic terrorists came to their house looking for Christian men. They forced Yacouba and another man, bound and blindfolded, into the church at gunpoint. As militants hunted more Christians, Alimata and other women fled with their children. As they ran, they heard gunshots. &#8220;I knew that they had killed my husband,&#8221; Alimata said. While hiding, a woman named Fadima also heard the gunshots that killed her husband and 27 more men inside the church. &#8220;Please pray for me as I am in trauma,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-5139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","tag-burkina-faso","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christian Women Widowed by Islamists - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christian Women Widowed by Islamists - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alimata&#039;s husband, Yacouba, was the assistant pastor at a church in Kounla. On August 25, 2024, Islamic terrorists came to their house looking for Christian men. They forced Yacouba and another man, bound and blindfolded, into the church at gunpoint. As militants hunted more Christians, Alimata and other women fled with their children. As they ran, they heard gunshots. &quot;I knew that they had killed my husband,&quot; Alimata said. While hiding, a woman named Fadima also heard the gunshots that killed her husband and 27 more men inside the church. &quot;Please pray for me as I am in trauma,&quot; she said.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-02T08:07:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"vomtechsupport\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/#\/schema\/person\/5ff286fd5505fccd2d5ebfd9d4203216\"},\"headline\":\"Christian Women Widowed by Islamists\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-02T08:07:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\"},\"wordCount\":204,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/assets.persecution.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/VOM-Stories-iCommit-PlaceholderV2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Burkina Faso\"],\"articleSection\":[\"iCommitToPray\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/christian-women-widowed-by-islamists\/\",\"name\":\"Christian Women Widowed by Islamists - 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