Five million people march in Nigeria

Barnabas Fund, 10 February 2020

Five million people took part in protest marches across Nigeria on Sunday 2 February against the murder of Pastor Lawn Andimi by Boko Haram.

The peaceful demonstrations, organised by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) as the final event of a three-day fast, took place in 28 of the country’s 36 states.

CAN president Samson Ayokunle said, “Though we have protested before, this event took a new dimension … With one voice we said ‘no’ to killings, ‘no’ to security negligence, and ‘no’ to the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. It is a wake-up call to the government.”

Pastor Andimi, a local chairman of CAN in Adamawa State, was murdered by Boko Haram on 20 January, after being kidnapped on 2 January.

“Lord, forgive our persecutors” say Rohingyas

Barnabas Fund, 28 January 2020

There have been multiple attacks by Rohingya Muslim mobs on the Rohingya Christian community in Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, Bangladesh, thought to be a backlash in the wake of a UN rapporteur’s raising of specific concerns over anti-Christian persecution in the camp.

An extremist mob, in gangs of at least 100, swarmed into the vulnerable Christian community on 27 January, four days after the expert’s report was released.

One individual went missing in the onslaught and is presumed dead at the time of writing.

The Muslim mobs ransacked the community’s church and looted and destroyed the Christians’ houses.

Camp security forces reportedly turned on the Christians, rather than protecting them, and confiscated mobile phones containing evidence of the attacks.

A Rohingya Christian leader posted a prayer for the attackers on Facebook. “O Lord please forgive our persecutors,” he said, recalling the stoning of Stephen.

This now doubly-persecuted group of a few hundred Rohingya Christians live among 750,000 mainly-Muslim Rohingya who fled their homeland to escape genocide at the hands of the Myanmar Army.  The formerly persecuted Rohingya Muslim refugees have now turned persecutors. 

Boko Haram executes Nigerian Church leader

Barnabas Fund, 21 January 2020

Boko Haram has announced that it has killed Pastor Lawan Andimi, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria,  kidnapped by the Islamist group this month.  It is not known how Pastor Andimi, who leaves behind a wife and seven children, was killed.

In his final message to his family and colleagues, Pastor Lawan Andimi urged them not to cry or worry about him but to “thank God for everything”

“By the grace of God, I will be together with my wife, my children and my colleagues. If the opportunity has not been granted, maybe it is the will of God,” he said.

It is thought that the church was involved in negotiations with the captors for his release when he was killed.

There are indications that Boko Haram is extending its territory in north-east Nigeria. At least four murderous Islamist attacks have taken place in the region in less than a month. The group may be progressively combining forces with other terrorist militia including ISWAP, Fulani herdsmen and Al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab kill eight Christians in Kenya attack

Barnabas Fund, 12 December 2019

Christians and non-Muslims were singled out and killed when suspected Al Shabaab extremists attacked a bus in northern Kenya on 6 December.

The bus was forced to a halt by the militants on the Somali border, as it travelled from Nairobi to Mandera.

The militants allowed Muslims to go free before killing at least eleven non-local passengers, eight of whom were Christians.  7 of the murdered Christians were unarmed policemen returning to work after a period of leave.

The terrorists are thought to have identified the non-Muslims by the fact that they were not local people. That area of Kenya is 99% Muslim, but Kenya as a whole is over 80% Christian.  Please pray in the run up to Christmas when extremist attacks on Christians often increase.

Al Shabaab militants have singled out Christians for execution-style murder in 2 previous bus attacks in Kenya. 

Public outcry in Turkey gets good result

Barnabas Fund, 29 November 2019

A public outcry in Turkey over anti-Christian and anti-Semitic billboards displaying a quote from the Quran declaring that Muslims should not befriend Christians or Jews, has led to their removal by authorities.

The billboards, which were displayed at bus stops throughout the city of Konya, had a drawing of a Christian cross and Jewish star of David splattered with blood next to chapter 5 verse 51 of the Quran that states, “Do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies.”

The quote goes on to state, “They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.”

Concerned members of the public complained that the posters could incite religious hatred and that the content was “hateful” to religious minorities. Both Jews and Christians are tiny minorities in this 98% Muslim country.

“Why is house church worship a crime?”

Barnabas Fund, 7 November 2019

Iranian Christian Naser Goltapeh wrote an open letter from his prison cell on 1 November questioning why worshipping in house churches is an “action against national security”.

The Farsi-speaking convert from Islam, who was remanded in the notorious Evin prison and sentenced to serve a ten-year term in January 2018, wrote, “Today marks more than two years since I have been detained in prison for the fabricated charge of acting against national security by running house churches …”.

“I do not know by what logic or under which crime this heavy sentence has been imposed upon me. I hope that Christ’s love will spread through the voice of imprisoned Christians throughout the world,” wrote Naser.

He noted that Christians are one of Iran’s recognised religious minorities that “are free to practise their religion” under the constitution.

Naser was arrested in July 2017 during a police raid on a church meeting. He was convicted of assembling in an “illegal gathering” that “threatens the security of Iran”.

Christians flee “soft ethnic cleansing” in Syria

4 November 2019

Pro-Turkish forces are reportedly carrying out a “soft ethnic cleansing” of Christians in north-east Syria by terrorising them into fleeing, despite assurances from Turkey’s President Erdogan that his forces would not persecute religious minorities.

Syrian armed groups allied with Turkey are preventing Christians from accessing their land during the current cotton harvest.

“We were told, ‘We have orders not to physically touch the Christians but know that you have no land here anymore’,” said Ishak of the Syrian Democratic Council.

He said the armed groups are “repeating what they did in Afrin”, referring to the Turkish invasion in 2018, backed by Syrian rebels and Islamist extremists. “In Afrin, they took the harvest of the Kurds who lived there and now they are doing it to the Christians.  The Christians then ask why should they stay and live under the Islamists.” said Ishak.

Christian family murdered in Burkina Faso

Barnabas Fund, 1 October 2019

An elderly Christian man and four of his sons were killed in one of five murderous attacks that took place in little more than a week in northern Burkina Faso, where Islamist extremists have already struck against Christian targets at least seven times this year.

A total of 41 people were killed in Bam Province, beginning on 21 September, where assaults on three villages left nine dead. Around 20 gunmen, aged between 17 and 25, roared into the villages on motorcycles.

On 23 September a further nine people died, including the Christian father and his four sons.

Barnabas Fund is providing food, healthcare and trauma counselling for Christian women and children who fled attacks in Burkina Faso earlier this year.

Persecuted turns persecutor in Bangladesh

Barnabas Fund, 24 September 2019

A tiny group of Christians amongst the 750,000 mainly-Muslim Rohingya people, who fled genocide at the hands of the Myanmar Army as refugees, are now doubly persecuted from Muslims within refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Already belonging to what some have called the “most persecuted people on earth”, the small community of Rohingya believers are now subjected to anti-Christian violence from extremist Muslim Rohingya in the camps in Cox’s Bazaar district.

In May 2019, a group of 17 families living in simple shacks were violently attacked on at least three consecutive nights by a Muslim mob of several hundred men armed with knives, swords, iron rods, stones and catapults.

No security personnel attempted to protect the Christians and there has been no investigation into the attacks.

The rise in persecution against Rohingya Christians follows on from calls by Rohingya Muslims for the Bangladeshi government to expel Christians from the camps.