Jihadists and political extremists are driving increased persecution of Christians around the world, according to a report unveiled by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020-22 has just been launched by the charity ACN in various countries around the world, including Malta. It contains information from ACN and other local sources, provides first-hand testimony, compilations of incidents, case studies and country analyses on the extent to which Christians are targeted around the world.

In the UK, the report was presented in the Houses of Parliament with a keynote address by Bishop Jude Arogundade whose diocese in Nigeria was targeted by gunmen who killed more than 40 people at a packed Sunday service last June.

Without education there is no future: ACN is supporting schools and students in Lebanon where, according to the World Bank, 70 per cent of the Lebanese are living below the poverty line.

Amid growing alarm about the increasing violence in parts of Nigeria, the bishop said that “no one seems to pay attention to the genocide” taking place in swathes of Nigeria. “The world is silent as attacks on churches, their personnel and institutions have become routine. How many corpses are required to get the world’s attention?”

The report found that, in 75 per cent of the 24 countries surveyed, oppression or persecution of Christians has increased since 2020.

Africa saw a sharp rise in terrorist violence from non-state militants, with more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians reportedly murdered between January 2021 and June 2022. In May 2022, a video was released showing 20 Nigerian Christians being executed by Islamist terror group Boko Haram/ISWAP. In Asia, state authoritarianism led to worsening oppression, which Persecuted and Forgotten? found was at its worst in North Korea, where religious belief and practice are routinely and systematically repressed.

The world is silent as attacks on churches, their personnel and institutions have become routine

Religious nationalism has triggered increasing violence against Christians in Asia, with Hindutva and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist groups active in India and Sri Lanka respectively. Authorities have arrested believers and stopped church services. 

India saw 710 incidents of anti-Christian violence between January 2021 and the start of June 2022, driven in part by political extremism. During a mass rally in Chhattisgarh, in October 2021, members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) applauded as the extreme nationalist Hindu religious leader Swami Parmatmanand called for Christians to be killed.

Some of the several ACN projects in Ukraine involved the support for emergency first-aid training for children in the community of St Andrew the Apostle.

The report also found that a migration crisis in the Middle East threatened the survival of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities. In Syria, Christians plummeted from 10 per cent of the population to less than two per cent – falling from 1.5 million just before the war began to around 300,000 today.

While the rate of exodus is slower in Iraq, a community that numbered around 300,000 before the 2014 invasion by Daesh (ISIS) had halved to 150,000 by spring 2022.

The report also found that in countries as diverse as Egypt and Pakistan, Christian girls are routinely subject to systematic kidnapping and rape.