Story by Jenna Kunze, reposted with permission from Anchorage Daily News
A Catholic priest from Nigeria who served in Fairbanks and Alaska villages across the Seward Peninsula from 2017 to 2024 was kidnapped by an Islamic terrorist group over the weekend, according to the Diocese of Fairbanks.
The Alaska diocese received news Monday that the Rev. Alphonsus Afina was ambushed and abducted by Boko Haram while traveling by car in northern Nigeria after Sunday Mass, said the Rev. Robert Fath, the vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks.
Boko Haram has targeted Christian and certain Muslim communities in a violent insurgency against the Nigerian government with a goal to create an Islamic state since 2009. They have claimed responsibility for church burnings, executions and mass kidnappings, including the 2014 abduction of nearly 300 school-aged girls that drew global attention and outrage with the Twitter campaign #BringBackOurGirls.
On Tuesday, the Diocese of Fairbanks held a Mass to pray for the priest’s safe return to his family. More than 200 parishioners attended the Mass, and more live-streamed in from villages where Afina once served, Fath said.
The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks currently has 25 priests, 14 of whom have come to the U.S. on short-term missions from countries in Africa, Europe and Asia to help lead parishes as the United States has become more secular, Fath said.
Afina served in Fairbanks, Nome, Kotzebue, Little Diomede, Teller, Saint Michael, Stebbins and Unalakleet during his 6 1/2 years in Alaska. He also took online classes to receive a degree in psychology and counseling with the plan to establish a trauma center once he returned home to Nigeria for victims of Boko Haram, Fath said.
Afina’s faith community in Alaska is now praying that he won’t become a victim himself.
“We hear about religious persecution in places like Africa and Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and it’s very intellectual, I think, for most of us,” Fath said. “But now knowing someone who has been abducted because of his faith, who is facing very extreme circumstances, even the possibility of being executed for his beliefs, really brings it home.”
Just before Mass, a bishop from the diocese of Maiduguri, Nigeria, where Afina served, said they had received a phone call from Boko Haram confirming they had Afina, Fath said. No additional information was given.
“From what I’ve been told, it’s unusual for (Boko Haram) to contact people until they have executed the individual,” Fath said. “So it was a little out of the ordinary that they received a phone call saying that they had him.”
According to Fath, Afina spoke openly about dealing with Boko Haram back in Nigeria — “being shot at, being threatened, having churches burned down, having family members and friends who were abducted and killed,” he said.
Fath said Afina is “a very prayerful and holy man” with a smile on his face, and he often regaled parishioners and fellow priests with stories from back home in Africa.
While they await more news from Nigeria, Fath said that the most powerful weapon Catholics have is prayer.
“That’s why we celebrated Mass for him yesterday,” he said. “We’re encouraging the faithful to continue to pray for him, to spend time in Eucharist or holy hours, to fast and offer other forms of penance, to give Father Alphonsus strength.”
