Barnabas Fund, 6 July 2022

3 Nigerian Christian women kidnapped as teenagers by Boko Haram Islamist terrorists from a school in Chibok 8 years ago have been found.

They were recovered with their children by the Nigerian Army during operations against Boko Haram in Borno State between 27 June and 25 July.

Ruth Bitrus, 24, and her child were rescued in Sambisa Forest.  Hanatu Musa, 26, and her 2 children, and Kauna Luka, 25, with 1 child, were recovered in the Bama Area.

Major General Shaibu said the women and children were given medical check-ups.  Arrangements are being made for them to be reunited with their families, he added.

Reporters said the women looked traumatised and thanked the military for their rescue.

Boko Haram abducted 276 mostly Christian girls from the Chibok School in April 2014.  Around 165 girls have since escaped, been rescued or released.  They reported being whipped to force them into marriage, while some Christian girls had a mock execution for refusing to convert to Islam.

In June 2022 the military recovered two other kidnapped Chibok women.  Mary Dauda revealed they were starved and beaten by their captors, adding, “I’m so happy to be back.”

International Christian Concern, 1 August 2022 (excerpts)

The wildly unpopular new president of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe, elected last month amidst widespread turmoil due to the country’s economic crisis, has recently prompted anger amongst Sri Lanka’s Christian community.  Two particular affronts have prompted this.

First, he requested that the Supreme Court remove his name from the list of required respondents to petitions concerning the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings which killed 250 and injured 500 while he was Sri Lanka’s prime minister.  Investigations into these bombings are ongoing.  The president’s move to excuse himself from these deliberations instead of focusing his efforts on salvaging his country’s economy have riled the nation’s Christians.

The second incident was a police raid on a church in the capital.  Authorities stormed the church in search of Fr Amila Peiris, a major figure in the anti-government protests persisting since Sri Lanka’s economic collapse. Fr Peiris is accused of participating in a June rally and banned from leaving the country.  These allegations are likely just excuses for repressive state measures against the clergyman. The authorities targeting of Fr Peiris has further compounded Christians anger against Sri Lanka’s new president.

The Sri Lankan Christian Solidarity Movement asserted, “We strongly urge the government to respect people’s freedoms enshrined in the country’s constitution.” They also reaffirmed their commitment to peaceful dissent.

Voice of the Martyrs, 6 July 2022 (excerpts)

Front-line workers recently visited with four Christian families in Chiapas, Mexico, who have been rejected by their community because of their faith in Christ.

The families were held hostage in their homes and denied the right to leave for food or groceries. Eventually, members of the community drove the families from their homes.

Despite this opposition, the families remain firm in their faith, and they were filled with joy as they received encouragement from front-line workers and participated in a viewing of the Tortured for Christ movie.

“They are committed to share the gospel in their community no matter the cost,” a front-line worker shared.  “Pray for God’s wisdom in their relationship with their community and for freedom to preach the gospel.”

Specific areas within southern Mexico have a high concentration of indigenous minority groups.  These minority communities, which maintain a separate identity and language, are systematically oppressed by local authorities.

Christians among them are persecuted by Marxist and animist groups as well as village leaders.  These communities are remotely located and difficult to reach. Despite persecution, the number of Christians has continued to grow in these areas.

Barnabas Fund, 6 July 2022

A mob of Muslim extremists attacked a church and the homes of Christians in Luxor, Egypt on 23 June, after the church was granted an official licence.

The church in al-Halla village was among 239 churches registered in April by a government committee.  On the morning of the attack the Interior Ministry stationed guards outside the church, a standard government procedure at licensed churches across the country to ensure their security.

Local Christians said the licensing of the church and the appearance of the guards enraged Muslim extremists and a large crowd gathered, including Muslims from outside the village, shouting anti-Christian slogans.

The mob went on to attack the church and throw stones at the homes of Christians.  Several vehicles and motorbikes owned by Christians were set on fire.  “We kept to our homes for safety’s sake,” said a Christian. “This led to no casualties.”

Police were sent to the scene and helped the Interior Ministry guards to bring the situation under control.

“We have been worshipping at our church since 2003 without any problems,” explained a Christian.  “The village Muslims were well aware of it and no one ever objected.  “Now that the church has been legalised, the fundamentalists among them were furious.”

Christians say that their situation in Muslim-majority Egypt is now better than it has been in living memory.

Barnabas Fund, 7 July 2022 (excerpts)

The Tajikistan government will not register any more churches.  The senior state religious affairs official, Sulaymon Davlatzoda, informed Christian leaders of the decision at a meeting in the capital Dushanbe in late May.

No reason for this decision was given.

He was widely quoted by Christian leaders as saying, “We will no longer register any new churches. We will keep the figure of registered churches unchanged from now on.”

No church in Tajikistan had lost its registration in recent years, but no churches have been registered either.  Meeting for worship in unregistered premises is illegal.

The government also restricts public prayer by Muslims to officially registered mosques and has closed independent, unregistered mosques.

A church leader said, “We are sad … we are not allowed to open new churches and are banned from sharing our faith.”

Even the few churches granted nationwide registration are not in practice allowed to register new congregations.  The official also reiterated the government prohibition on children under 18 taking part in public religious activities.  Fines have been issued for non-compliance.

Tajikistan’s population is 90% Muslim, with a small Christian minority.  Converts from Islam are persecuted by authorities and often lose their jobs when they become Christians.

Barnabas Fund, 23 June 2022 (excerpts)

A new draft of Tunisia’s constitution does not name Islam as the North African country’s state religion.

In May 2022 Sadaq Belaid, a legal expert appointed to oversee the drafting process by Kais Saied, President of Tunisia since 2019, said that the aim of the change was to combat Islamist extremism.

The new draft, submitted to President Saied on 20 June, will be voted on in a referendum on 25 July.

“80% of Tunisians are against extremism and the use of religion for political ends,” said Belaid earlier this month. 

“If you use religion to engage in political extremism, we will not allow that,” he added.

President Saied confirmed after receiving the draft, “The next constitution of Tunisia won’t mention a state with Islam as its religion, but of belonging to an umma which has Islam as its religion.”

“The umma and the state are two different things,” the president explained.  Umma is the global Muslim community or international Islamic world.

The population of Tunisia is 98% Muslim but the country has since 2014 had a guarantee of freedom of religion.

The Christian community includes some Tunisian converts from Islam and their children.

Local Tunisian churches are not prevented from functioning but have no legal status so cannot own property.  Converts from Islam are stigmatised by the majority Muslim community and may be rejected by Muslim relatives.

Barnabas Fund, 21 June 2022 (excerpts)

Islamist militants raided a Christian village in northern Mozambique on 17 June, beheading one resident.

The raid by terrorists linked to Islamic State is the first in recent years in Nampula province.

IS has also claimed responsibility for the “beheading of several Christians” in raids across Cabo Delgado province, to the north of Nampula.

The militant Islamic State-affiliated organisation Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama effectively gained control of an area of Cabo Delgado in 2017.

The province has been termed “the Land of Fear” owing to brutal violence meted out against both Christians and moderate Muslims.

Beheading, skinning and cutting off the limbs of their victims are the group’s typical methods, with one expert commenting, “What they do to the people they capture and kill I have never seen anywhere in Africa.”

In late 2021 Mozambican, Rwandan and South African forces had started to drive the Islamists back. However, the Islamist insurgency now appears to be spreading.

In December a pastor in the Macomia district of Cabo Delgado was abducted and decapitated by Islamists, who then ordered his widow to carry the head in a sack to a district police station and report the murder.

Voice of the Martyrs, 23 June 2022 (excerpts)

Sahid and his wife, Memona, have 6 children and live in a small Hindu village in Pakistan.  In April 2022, a Hindu religious leader and one of Sahid’s relatives confronted Sahid and Memona about their Christian faith.  The religious leader questioned why the couple had not attended Hindu festivals or participated in Hindu prayers. 

The leader and Sahid’s relative threatened them to renounce their faith in Christ, but they remained firm.  Around 2 weeks later, their home was set on fire, and the 2 youngest children were killed.  When they notified the police, the authorities tried to pressure them to claim the fire was an accident. 

All Pakistani Christians face difficulties, discrimination and persecution because of their Christian identity.  Some take great risks to witness to Muslims, baptize converts and gather them into churches, and many Christians are working tirelessly to equip, encourage and educate Christian youth.  Some boldly share the gospel and distribute God’s Word in Muslim neighbourhoods and cities, some of them home to extremists like Taliban. 

Approximately 98 percent of Pakistanis are Sunni and Sufi Muslims.  There are roughly 4 million Pakistani Christians, nearly 2 percent of the nation’s population.

Christians converts from Islam and Pakistanis born into Christian families are persecuted by their communities, Islamic extremist groups and the government.

Voice of the Martyrs, Jun. 09, 2022

After becoming a prominent, active leader of his church, Kalithas received threats from Hindu extremists in his community.  They warned that he would face severe consequences if he continued his bold witness in the village. 

On Dec. 16, 2021, four men came to his home and started kicking his gate.  Kalithas rushed toward them, asking why they were destroying his property.  The men threw alcohol in his face and started beating him.  When he fell to the ground, three men held him down while the fourth struck his head with an iron rod. 

After the men fled, villagers rushed Kalithas to the hospital.  He remained in a coma until he died on Dec. 20.  Pray that the four men who killed him are brought to justice and also come to know Jesus.  Pray for Kalithas’ family and pray that villagers who hear his story will also put their trust in Christ.

The island nation of Sri Lanka, off the eastern coast of India, is still rebuilding from a civil war between Buddhist and Hindu factions that ended in 2009.  The government has put significant efforts into resettling those displaced during the conflict between the majority-Buddhist Sinhalese population and the Hindu Tamil separatists.

There are strong churches in the country as well as parachurch organizations that provide Bible training, theological education and missions training.  Churches in Sri Lanka are actively sending missionaries to other countries in South Asia.

Barnabas Fund, Jun. 10, 2022 (excerpts)

Hundreds of homes in a historic Christian village in Myanmar have been burned down in a renewed attack by the military (Tatmadaw).

More than two thirds of the estimated 500 homes in Chan Thar were destroyed on 7 June, the second raid on the village in a month.  On 7 May at least 20 homes were set on fire by troops, causing thousands of residents to flee.

In the latest raid the army bombarded Chan Thar with artillery shells before soldiers went from house to house setting them on fire.

“The villagers were seen crying as they witnessed their homes go up in smoke,” said a local source.

Chan Thar and the historic communities of Chaung Yeo and Monhia are known as Bayingyi villages where inhabitants are descended from Christians who settled in the area in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

On 20 May the army burned down almost all the 350 homes in Chaung Yeo, forcing hundreds of its Christians to flee.

The military, seizing power in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2021, has for many years persecuted the country’s Christian minority, estimated to make up 6.2% of the population.