Christian teachers ask to leave after bomb blast rips home

Christian teachers are facing deadly persecution in northeastern Kenya at the hands of Islamic militants.

Five teachers have been killed this year including two earlier this month in Mandera, located along the Kenya-Somalia border. 

Nathan Johnson with International Christian Concern says non-local teachers are often a target because they are known to be Christians.

The two teachers killed were sleeping in a home with other non-locals.

"Al-Shabaab, or an Islamic extremist group like them, attacked the school by blowing up the house where the teachers were all sleeping," Johnson says.

The Star, a Kenyan newspaper, reported in an Oct. 10 story that the Islamic militants sneaked onto the school grounds and threw an explosive device. The story described the border area as a "hot spot" for terrorist attacks. 

Some teachers have predictably asked to be relocated from the dangerous border area, and they were promised protection from the government if they remained.

"They promised to close the borders off," says Johnson, "but al-Shabaab has been able to still get through those borders basically whenever they want to."

In a second tragic story, ICC reports that a 15-year-old Christian teenager in neighboring Nigeria remains a captive of the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram. The girl, Leah Sharibu, is considered a slave by the group.

ICC is pleading with the Nigerian government help the abjucted teen.