![[File Image]: Demonstrators hold signs during a protest to urge authorities to rescue hundreds of abducted schoolboys, in northwestern state of Katsina, Nigeria, 17 December 2020.](https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Kidnapping-Nigeria-Reuters-1-750x423.jpg)
A Nigerian Catholic priest abducted last week was found murdered on Tuesday while his colleague managed to escape from his captors in the northern state of Kaduna, the local diocese said.
Fathers John Mark Cheitnum and Donatus Cleophas were seized in the town of Lere when attending a parish function at Christ the King Catholic Church in Yadin Garu last Friday.
On Tuesday, the body of Cheitnum was found, the Kafanchan diocese said in a statement, adding that he was “brutally killed on the same day of his abduction.” His burial is on Thursday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction.
About a dozen priests have been kidnapped this year across Nigeria by gunmen who demand ransom payments.
Nigerian security forces who are stretched fighting an insurgency in the northeast often fail to stop the attacks.
![[file photo]Athletes exercise in the early morning in the sports ground of the University of Eldoret in western Kenya, March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola/File Photo](https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/WZHV5VWNMNK4TM2H7VLKEHUIWM-120x86.jpg)
