This number rose from 3,150 last year.But attacks and forced closures of churches have skyrocketed from 1,847 to 9,488, with China accounting for 5,576.Angola was second with 2,000 and Rwanda was third with 700. 3), Libya (No. This year, it reached 45.Open Doors has monitored Christian persecution worldwide since 1992. 16), Colombia (No. North Korea has ranked No. After training from Open Doors in women’s ministry, she organises regular Bible studies for 150 women. The United Nations estimates 500,000 people have been displaced from their homes. “Christians have a worldwide brotherhood, and the government sees this as a threat.”“It is time for religious persecution to stop once and for all,” said Robert Destro, Assistant Secretary of State in the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, at today’s rollout. They work with local partners to distribute Bibles and Christian literature, give discipleship [clarification needed] training and provide practical support, such as emergency relief aid. The continuing rise in the subcontinent of a militant Hindu nationalism contributed to 1,445 of the reported 14,645 cases worldwide.China is the chief violator in Open Doors’s other two previously tracked categories.Beijing has jailed or detained without charge 1,147 Christians for faith-related reasons, out of a total of 3,711 worldwide. The list “provides the most comprehensive grassroots data on Christian persecution,” said Curry. 1 since 2002, when the watch list began.The 2020 version tracks the time period from November 1, 2018 to October 31, 2019, and is compiled from reports by Open Doors workers in more than 60 countries. Each one of them has their own story.“This often includes deep suffering, but also courage and strong faith.”To unlock this article for your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below.To share this article with your friends, use any of the social share buttons on our site, or simply copy the link below.Browse 60+ years of magazine archives and web exclusives. 50), rejoined the list for the first time in five years. 28) ranks fifth. In these cases, round numbers are presented, always leaning towards conservative estimates.In the Middle East, Open Doors noted little change, with 4 of 5 Christians experiencing “high” levels of persecution. 29) join Egypt (No.
Nigeria tops the list, with 224.Nigeria also leads the newly tracked categories of forced marriages (accounting for 130 out of 630 worldwide), attacked Christian homes (1,500 out of 3,315), and looted Christian shops (1,000 out of 1,979).India ranks first in the new category of physical or mental abuse, which includes beatings and death threats. 39), where recent reforms removed 2.5 million from Open Doors’s global total of Christians facing high levels of persecution. In May 2019, the Christian mother of five was allowed to emigrate to Canada after the Supreme Court of Pakistan “The suffering of persecuted Christians cannot be recorded in statistics,” stated Open Doors. Well, let’s look at an editorial that ran Tuesday in USA Today by Open Doors CEO David Curry with this attention-grabber of a headline: “Global Christian persecution is worsening while American Christian churches slumber.” It opened with the latest anti-Christian outrage in Nigeria, where 3,731 Christians were killed in 2018.
“But it is much more than that. “But as we all know, that is a long-term proposition.”The point of the annual WWL rankings—which have chronicled how This year the top 10 is relatively unchanged. The African Center for Strategic Studies calculates that Meanwhile, a transition in Nigeria from village raids to kidnapping by militant Muslim Fulani herdsmen—whose attacks were six times as deadly as Boko Haram’s, according to the International Crisis Group—resulted in an overall decrease in Christians killed in the Sahel, as well as worldwide.Due to this shift in tactics, worldwide martyrdoms fell to 2,983 in the 2020 report, down from 4,305 the year before.
(Another Sahel country, Niger (No. “We cannot let this stand,” said David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, during the 2020 list’s unveiling in Washington, DC, this morning. “The persecution of Christians is the worst I have seen since 1979,” he said. Conflict between Muslim herders and Christian farmers has also resulted in violence. “Yet, as the Chinese Christians who will join me will testify, the persecution Christians face—including extensive surveillance, raids on churches, and imprisonment—have not succeeded in eliminating Christianity.“Instead, the underground Christian community has banded together and is actively working to call the world’s attention to the plight of the Chinese people. 2), followed by Somalia (No. 8), Iran (No.