Christian persecution: How many are being killed, where they are being killed

April 16, 2022 By Violence

Georeen Tanner,

This past Palm Sunday was a dark day in Egypt. Suicide bombings at two Coptic Christian churches, one in Alexandria and the other in Tanta left 45 people dead and many more wounded. Although there has been an uptick in violence against Christians in the region, Egypt is hardly alone in a long list of countries — many in the Middle East — that are violently hostile towards Christians.

A list generated by Open Doors USA, a nonprofit organization focused on serving persecuted Christians, shows the Middle East accounts for a majority of countries ranked in the top 10 for extreme persecution of Christians. In order, the countries are as follows:

1.       North Korea

2.      Somalia

3.      Afghanistan

4.      Pakistan

5.      Sudan

6.      Syria

7.      Iraq

8.      Iran

9.      Yemen

10.   Eritrea

Egypt ranks No. 21. According to the Christian advocacy group, one in 12 Christians today experiences high, very high or extreme persecution for their faith. Nearly 215 million Christians face high persecution, with 100 million of those living in Asia.

egyptchristianattacks_small Christian persecution: How many are being killed, where they are being killed Violence

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, an academic research center that monitors worldwide demographic trends in Christianity, estimates that between the years 2005 and 2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred — an average of 90,000 Christians each year.

From Nov. 1, 2015, to Oct. 31, 2016, Open Doors documented as many as 1,207 Christians who were killed around the globe for faith-related reasons during the 2017 list’s reporting period. This is a conservative estimate since it only includes documented cases and does not include statistics from North Korea and large areas of Iraq and Syria. Of the lists procured, these are the Middle Eastern or Muslim-dominated countries where Christian deaths occurred during the same time period:

1.       Pakistan: 76

2.      Syria: 24

3.      Somalia: 12

4.      Egypt: 12

5.      Afghanistan: 10

6.      Yemen: 4

7.      Libya: 2

8.      Iraq: 1

Open Doors also documented a total of 1,329 churches attacked worldwide for faith-related reasons. These are the Middle Eastern or Muslim-dominated countries where those attacks happened between Nov. 1, 2015, and Oct. 31, 2016:

1.       Pakistan: 600

2.      Iran: 11

3.      Iraq: 8

4.      Syria: 7

5.      Yemen: 3

6.      Libya: 3

7.      Palestinian territories: 2

The underlying cause for persecution is Islamic extremism, according to Open Doors. The Christian population in Iraq alone has plummeted from 1.5 million in 2003 to current estimates of 275,000. In a few years that number could be zero, activists say.

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  • DrArtaud

    Important article, facts of the plight of Christians that’s simply not being covered adequately in the mainstream media or Conservative media. The origins of Christianity are in the Middle East. As Americans, we should be at least as concerned about the plight of these Christians (Middle Eastern and North Korean) as we would Jews or muslims. As Christians even more so.

    Few people are aware that obama excluded Christian refugees for all/most of his presidency, and tragically, with nary a complaint from the mainstream media, Conservative media, and Christians, this flagrant discrimination continued as we shoveled muslims into the country buy the boatload.

    Article: No room in America for Christian refugees

    ….The rapes of Christian women and the butchery of Christian children do not count. No matter how moved Americans were this Christmas season by the plight of their fellow Christ followers in Syria and Iraq, no matter how horrific the visuals of beheadings, enslavement, and mass murder, the Christians fleeing death do not engender the compassion of this president.
    °
    The Christians are being raped, tortured, and murdered by militias, not by the Syrian government. This technicality condemns them to continue to be victims without hope. And this technicality is being adhered to with all the tenacity with which President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State Department manipulated quotas and created subterfuges to keep out the Jews fleeing the oppression of Nazi Germany. Obama no more wants the Middle East’s Christian refugees than Roosevelt wanted Europe’s Jewish refugees.

    Another site I recently came across follows:

    Kudos to this Jewish gentleman for his efforts, at least he realizes the extent of the problem. What needs done to get Christian America and Americans in general on board?

    Jewish peer George Weidenfeld, who was able to escapee Nazi-occupied Austria with the assistance of British Christians, is funding a charity known as the (Web Site): Barnabas Fund in an effort to save the Syrian Christians.

    “I have a debt to repay,” Lord Weidenfeld, who was rescued by Quakers at the age of five, told Daily Express.

    ISIS “is unprecedented in its primitive savagery compared with the more sophisticated Nazis. When it comes to pure lust for horror and sadism, they are unprecedented. There never was such scum as these people,” later added Weidenfeld.