|PIC1|More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in attacks by the group in the northern Nigerian states of Bauchi, Yobe, Kano and Borno in recent months.

The violence was worst in the city of Maiduguri, a Boko Haram stronghold, where at least 700 people were killed in attacks on several police stations.

The source of funding for the group has come under scrutiny in the last week after one captured Boko Haram militant admitted receiving weapons and explosives training in Afghanistan.

Friday’s services in Abuja and London are being coordinated by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and Nigerian clergyman in London.

Host of the London event, the Rev Canon Ben Enwuchola, appealed to Christians in the UK to pray for victims of the recent violence and for lasting peace and reconciliation between religious communities in northern and central Nigeria.

“In 1987, I ferried victims of religious violence from the university in Kano to hospital,” he said.

“It is shocking that over twenty years later, Nigeria’s cyclical religious violence has neither been recognised nor adequately addressed.

“We hope by this event to raise greater awareness of the suffering of the Christian community of northern and central Nigeria.”