“My God, it is hard to be chained and receive blows but I live this moment as you present it to me.” Such was the prayer of Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez. She was held for more than four years by Islamist militants in Mali, west Africa. Recalling what happened when a jihadist leader found her praying, she said he struck her, saying: “Let’s see if that God gets you out of here.” She reflected: “My soul shuddered at what this person was saying while the guards laughed out loud at the insults.”
When eventually she was released and gave her testimony to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) earlier this year, it rekindled memories of the atrocities carried out by extremists in Syria and Iraq. For those like me who have met the victims of Daesh (ISIS) torture in Aleppo, the Nineveh Plains and elsewhere, it came as no surprise that militancy was still rearing its ugly head. Some observers had assumed that Daesh and the like had been stopped in its tracks. If only.
