An American Christian missionary working in Nigeria has been abducted by  masked gunmen from the Hope Academy compound in Emiworo, Kogi state, Nigerian authorities and her church website reported last Tuesday.

The Free Methodist Church in which the hostage, Rev. Phyllis Sortor, was a member, confirmed that Sortor was taken by several gunmen from the compound Monday and called on the Nigerian people to pray for her safe return.

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Reports from the Kogi state police said the kidnapping has been confirmed although no ransom demand has been made yet by the abductors.

The Free Methodist Church has appealed to their churches in the United States to pray for the safety and immediate return of Sortor.

Reports said the motive of the kidnapping has not yet been known but authorities said Nigeria has witnessed dozens of kidnappings of expatriates by criminal groups who demand ransom over the years.

Reports also said that terrorists and Islamist militant groups have been kidnapping Westerners in Nigeria including Boko Haram.

Nigerian police said Boko Haram has been staging its attacks mainly in Northern Nigeria but reports said it has already carried out terrorist attacks in other locations in the country..

Bishop David Kendall of the Methodist Church said the US State Department and the FBI have been closely coordinating and conferring with Nigerian authorities to trace Sortor and eventually free her.

Sortor reportedly had helped build schools for the children of the Fulani people, the semi-nomadic herdsmen who have become close to her heart.

According to the church website, Sortor expressed joy after opening a school in Enugu located at the southeastern part of Nigeria. Sortor wrote about that joy in the January 2015 church newsletter.

"We have worked long and hard on this school, and are so thrilled that yesterday, January 19th, 2015, we were able to open our doors for the first time! We began with 82 children, 58 of whom are Muslim, Fulani kids from one nearby camp," she wrote. 

TagsNigeria, Rev. Phyllis Sortor, Free Methodist Church, Boko Haram