Word: townes
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...question. Instead, they opened fire and hurled rocks, forcing families to flee in a panic - moments before fresh flames consumed their homes as well. When the attackers were done, nine people had been killed and 45 homes lay smoldering and destroyed in the clustered Christian colony in Gojra, a town in central Punjab, marking the worst anti-Christian violence Pakistan has seen in recent years...
...fiery sermon inciting violence against them. The police visited the Christian community later that night, warning them of possible violence the next day. Some left that very night. But it appears others didn't receive the warning and were present when thousands of Muslim protesters charged through the town...
Authorities and human-rights groups now suspect that the attackers belonged to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian militant group from the nearby town of Jhang. A senior member, Qari Saifullah, served as Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's right-hand man and trained scores of suicide bombers. The group's even more vicious offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is considered al-Qaeda's front in Pakistan. The enduring and undisturbed presence of Sipah-e-Sahaba and other militant groups in central and southern Punjab has led many analysts to predict that the militants will open up their next front here. Already...
...This isn't the first time that this has happened," says Pastor William, who heads the burned one-room church. Similar episodes of broke out in the towns of Shantinagar in 1997 and Shangla Hill in 2005. Just last month, accusations of blasphemy triggered violence in four different towns in Punjab. On Tuesday, two people were killed in the town of Muridke after a similar accusation was raised. In each case, says William, blasphemy laws are used as a pretext for attacks on religious minorities. Anger is now spreading in Pakistan's Christian community. On Wednesday, riots broke...
...beans lunch, and made friends with a shopkeeper who now invites me in for chai. I've spent hours teaching in the primary schools, laughing as our students yell "semen" in Swahili at the top of their lungs while we teach about HIV transmission. I've walked around town wearing a paper hat and cape, spitting memorized Swahili phrases through a megaphone to encourage people to get tested for HIV, I’ve tried to barter with women selling maize at the market, telling them in my broken Swahili that I'll mind their stands while they...