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This is a series of posts about the 50 countries in the world where it is the most dangerous to be a Christian.

 

This is taken from the 2024 World Watch List launched earlier this year in Parliament by the charity Open Doors. This was attended by 98 MP's, including Christina Rees (our local MP), Ian Duncan-Smith, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Ian Paisley jr, and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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This section will be updated frequently. If you would like to view the full list you can access this via www.opendoorsuk.org

 

Fifth on the list is Yemen, a country which has also been in the news recently as American and British forces have attacked Houthi rebels based there and who were attacking shipping who they believed were supporting Israel in the Gaza conflict.

There has been a vicious civil war between the Houthis and the government in Yemen since 2014. The conflict has escalated with Iran supporting the rebels and the UAE & Saudi Arabia supplying arms to the government. Different warring parties, including Al-Qaeda have taken advantage of the political instability to seize control of various parts of Yemen. This, and the conflict, has created a humanitarian crisis as infrastructure services like water, healthcare and education have all but collapsed.

The UN estimates that 80% of the 24 million population are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, particularly children. Where aid is received it is often distributed via local mosques, and non-Muslims are discriminated against.

Christians are subject to extreme levels of persecution, with their religious freedoms violated by family, Muslim extremists, and the authorities. This includes documented cases of forced marriages, “honour killings”, rape, and physical/mental abuse. Conversion from Islam is punishable by death.

70% of Yemen’s Christians are unable to meet for fellowship because of the dangers of arrest and violence. Operating in secrecy, Open Doors’ partners offer meeting places, medical advice, food distribution and leadership training. Expat Christians are allowed to worship together but are at risk of arrest for “promoting Christianity and distributing the Bible”.

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The point of these posts is of course, to raise awareness of these situations. Remember that where religious freedoms are violated, this will often be in the context of human rights abuses against faith and ethnic minorities. I would ask you to write to your MP to raise these issues with our government and ask what they are doing to encourage those foreign governments to respect freedom of religious belief (FoRB) & human rights, and to protect faith and ethnic minorities from extremist violence and miscarriages of justice.

Please also ask your MP to support the Private Members Bill to make the Prime Ministers Special Envoy for FoRB into a permanent cabinet post.

 

The sixth such country is Nigeria. As is the case with many countries in West Africa, Nigeria faces a complex array of security challenges from widespread criminality to jihadist extremism. Government resources are stretched to the point of collapse in many states, and as such, the safety of its citizens can no longer be guaranteed. Many have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence. This has created a widespread displacement crisis throughout this part of the continent.

Nigeria is the most populous country (200m) in West Africa and has long been the nation where more Christians are killed for their faith than in the rest of the world put together. At a conservative estimate this is about 6000 a year, although many more deaths are believed to be unknown and unreported. Nigeria is also one of the top 10 countries in the world for the number of attacks on church buildings.

Around 45% of the population is Christian, and 45% Muslim. In 2023, a new President, Bola Tinubu was elected. As a Muslim, he was expected to follow the longstanding tradition of choosing his vice-president from the other main religion. He instead appointed a Muslim, but as yet the effect on religious freedoms is unclear.

While the country has significant reserves of natural resources, the instability and violence has reduced the international appetite for investment and left much of the population facing poverty.

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Disappointingly, western governments and the media seem reluctant to acknowledge the rising tide of jihadism across West Africa as the main driver of violence and lawlessness. Meaning that those governments are under less international pressure to improve security for those ethnic and faith minorities that are being attacked.

Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa are the most active terrorist groups in the region. Nigeria’s northern belt is mainly Muslim, and here Christians are most vulnerable. The violence is spreading to the middle belt of the country, where there are roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians. In this area militant Fulani tribesmen also attack Christian communities to steal land and farms, abduct people, and commit rapes and executions.

Even in refugee and displacement camps, Christians are subject to persecution and violence. Across the country, Christians are disproportionately targeted for abduction, violence and execution. In one day in April 2022, 80 were killed, 60 abducted and 115 homes destroyed in widespread attacks on Christian villages. A further 40 were killed in a single attack on a church service in June 2022.

You might recall the 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram from the town of Chibok. Most of these girls were Christian. Nearly 100 are still missing, many of them and those rescued to date have children fathered by their abductors. These sorts of kidnappings happen frequently. Just last week two more such cases were reported on UK TV news bulletins. Again, the fact that most were Christian girls was less widely reported.

Leah Shambu was one of 100 girls abducted in 2018. She is the only one not released, because she refused to renounce her Christian faith.

Religious divisions are exacerbated by populist hate speech by politicians and religious leaders. Accusations of blasphemy against Islam trigger mob violence.

A 2021 report by the US government warned that rising tensions in Nigeria were likely to lead to widespread genocide. Open Doors and its partners deliver trauma care across sub-Saharan Africa to tens of thousands of victims of persecution and violence.