Africa’s most dangerous for Christians
Trouble for believers rising in America’s own neighborhood
Suzanne has forgiven the Boko Haram militants who killed her father and then shot her in the head in Nigeria. She lost her eyesight. Photo via globalchristianrelief.org
Suzanne was shot in the head by Boko Haram militants after they murdered her father in the field they tended in Madagali, Nigeria. Suzanne survived but lost her eyesight, revealing the terror Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, or the Islamic State of West Africa Province, commits regularly against Christians, states Global Christian Relief (GCR).
“I lifted my hands to the sky and yelled, ‘Jesus Christ, we have only you! Have mercy on us!’” Suzanne exclaimed.
Nigeria is the scene of a genocide against Christians, with at least 62,000 slaughtered since 2000 and no international effort to stop it. The plight of the persecuted church in Africa and Asia isn’t hyperbole because sub-Saharan Africa is the most dangerous location in the world for Christians.
Serious troublespots exist across Asia too. There’s also a growing trend of problems south of the U.S. border, which should get the attention of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The persecution manifests with killings, building attacks, arrests, abductions and assaults, and displacements, according to the Christian organization that examines worldwide persecution. The GCR Red List, which was released Jan. 11, is the first quantitative account of persecution worldwide, identifying November 2022 to 2024. GCR works in tandem with the International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF) to craft the Violent Incidents Database.
This map of the African continent comes via Britannica.com.
In the five categories identified by GCR and IIRF, four African nations are in the top 5 in two or three categories. Nigeria has the dubious distinction of being atop the lists for killings, with more than 9,800, and abductions and assaults, more than 9,300. The Democratic Republic of the Congo hits the top 5 in killings, 390, and displacements of people from homes and villages, 15,073. Meanwhile, Mozambique and Ethiopia found themselves in the top 5 in three categories: killings, 262; building attacks, 1,607; and displacements, 16,000, for Mozambique; and killings, 181; building attacks, 488; and abductions and assaults, 78; for Ethiopia.
Nigeria is in west Africa, with the DRC in central Africa. Meanwhile, Ethiopia is in the Horn of Africa and Mozambique is in southeast Africa, west of the island of Madagascar, which is in the Indian Ocean.
Sixteen nations occupy the 25 spots in these five GCR Red List categories, underscoring the multiple violators in Africa and elsewhere. The world’s second largest nation, India, led building attacks with 4,949. India came in second in displacements to Azerbaijan, which had more than 120,000 because of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian Christian population in Nagorno-Karabakh. India had more than 60,000 displacements.
Additionally, Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine hasn’t prevented President Vladimir Putin from gaining attention on the GCR Red List. Russia is fifth in killings, 164, and fourth in arrests, 224.
Where does Putin find time for these human rights violations when the war in Ukraine hasn’t gone as he planned or expected?
Myanmar is a double violator in southeast Asia. Myanmar’s four-year civil war has the much-hated military junta conducting a coup of the nation’s president. There are several groups now fighting the military junta. This has caused Myanmar to be third in building attacks, 1,490, and fifth in displacements, more than 1,500.
Issues affecting the persecuted church wouldn’t be complete without two of the most repressive nations on earth, China and North Korea. Both Asian nations, with China the largest nation in the world, also land in the same category: Arrests. China had there top spot with 1,559 arrests while North Korea landed in the fifth spot in this category with 208. North Korea has had a long history of murdering Christians, along with labor camps and torture among other human rights violations.
In the building attacks category, Ukraine occupies the fourth spot with 1,270 attacks on structures. GCR reports that this includes the highest number of attacks against churches, which is connected to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is reported most, if not all, of those church attacks are deliberate because they are not Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
Nina Shea reported the following for the Hudson Institute in April 2024:
Moscow’s invasion and devastation of Ukraine have contributed to the assessment by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), that Russia ranks among the world’s religious persecutors of greatest concern. Russia, they find, ‘egregiously’ and ‘systematically’ persecutes a wide array of Christian churches, except the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Moscow Patriarchate, which Putin co-opts. A Ukrainian delegation of diverse religious leaders told a Hudson Institute gathering last year that they fear that a victorious Russia would crush their religious institutions. Credible reports on Russia-occupied Ukraine validate this.
In the arrests category, Eritrea on the Horn of Africa has a reputation for attacking Christians. The GCR Red List reports Eritrea had 475 attests between 2022-2024. The government recognizes four religions: Eritrean Orthodox, Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Sunni Islam. The government targets independent gatherings of Christians, especially those opposing military conscription.
The Western Hemisphere dominates the remaining four GCR Red List nations. Nicaragua in Central America had 226 arrests, mainly against pro-democracy clergy. While Nigeria is the clear violator of abductions and assaults “by the thousands,” the Mexican drug cartels have displayed little patience for clergy taking stands against corruption and all aspects of the drug trade with 138 Christian disappearances in Mexico.
Organized crime and gang activity also has erupted in Haiti with 101 reported incidents of bus hijackings and kidnapping of families or pastors from parishes or homes. “The weak and fractured government only exacerbates the vulnerability of believers.”
Cameroon in West Africa had 83 reported incidents of abductions and assaults.
Nicaragua, Mexico, and Haiti landing on the GCR Red List should gain the attention of the new Trump administration. We still have no accounting of suspected terrorists who snuck across the border the past four years. Russia, China, and Iran have cozied up to Cuba and Venezuela.
The last thing America needs is more instability in our backyard.
