(CP) Christians were significantly impacted amid widespread displacement in 2024 and, in some countries, were targeted or killed by warring parties and Islamic terror groups, in response to an in depth report from a non secular freedom watchdog organization.
The United States-based International Christian Concern released its “2025 Global Persecution Index” Thursday, highlighting “essentially the most egregious violators of spiritual freedom in 2024” and “cataloging the countries, terrorist organizations, and government leaders whose actions have systematically targeted Christians.”
Among global trends that emerged or intensified in 2024 was mass displacement in conflict-ridden regions like Sudan and Myanmar, in addition to countries within the Sahel region of Africa impacted by the rise of Islamic extremism.
In Sudan, greater than 8 million people have been displaced since war broke out in 2023, during which each warring sides have “attacked religious sites, killed religious leaders and disrupted religious practices across the country.”
The report cites statistics from the United Nations, finding that about 3.3 million people residing within the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger were displaced initially of 2024 because the region has been gripped by the rise of Islamic terror groups taking the place of failed governments.
“While this displacement has affected followers of each religion, terrorist groups often select Christians and disfavored religious groups for targeted violence and are particularly vulnerable to displacement,” the report stated.
“Across the Sahel, terrorism and militant unrest is upending civilian life and rendering regular religious practice dangerous or unattainable,” an ICC staffer commented.
The Sahel region of Africa includes the aforementioned countries in addition to Chad, Eritrea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan.
Throughout northern Nigeria, Christian communities are sometimes attacked by Islamic extremists akin to the Islamic State West Africa Province and radicalized Fulani militants, resulting in the killing of hundreds lately.
The report outlined how the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 358,000 people residing within the violence-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo were displaced in January 2024 alone. The ICC attributes the unrest within the African nation partly to the Allied Democratic Forces, a militant group with “jihadist ideology.”
“While the DRC’s Christian-majority population signifies that some attacks on Christians could also be unmotivated by religion, the ADF is thought to focus on churches and church leaders,” the report noted.
The DRC and the Sahel were countries or regions placed into the “red zone” by the religious freedom advocacy group, a category reserved for jurisdictions “where Christians are frequently tortured or killed for his or her faith.”
Other countries that made it into the “red zone” are Nigeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, North Korea and Pakistan.
Four countries were classified as a part of the “orange zone,” meaning that their governments “severely oppress the rights of Christians.” Countries within the “orange zone” are China, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia and Vietnam were placed into the “yellow zone,” reserved for jurisdictions where “Christians endure attacks, arrest, and oppression.”
While much of the report painted a bleak picture of the state of spiritual freedom worldwide, the document pointed to “popular discontent with repression” as a positive development in 2024.
The report mentions the Spring 2024 elections in India, where the ruling Bharatiya Junta Party “found itself with a significantly reduced electoral mandate” that forced it to “form a coalition with several other parties to assemble a government in Parliament.”
The ICC lists the BJP as one in every of the “groups/entities” that’s “causing essentially the most harm” in India, stressing the way it “is thought for championing a narrow view of Indian identity based on the concept that to be truly Indian is to be Hindu — a view that necessarily reduces Christians and non secular minorities to second-class status.”
While acknowledging that “the long-term implications of this transformation have yet to be fully understood,” the advocacy group anticipated that following the 2024 elections, “the BJP’s nationalist agenda will probably be hampered by its coalition partners, that are significantly more secular.”
Another example of “popular discontent with repression” materialized in Myanmar, where a military junta led by extremist Buddhists generally known as the Tatmadaw continued to rule the country after overthrowing its democratically elected government in 2021.
ICC observes that the “junta’s violence has coalesced the country’s many ethnoreligious minorities, who chalked up many impressive military victories against the junta in 2024.”
“Research from the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar suggests that anti-junta militia gains have reduced the world under solid Tatmadaw control to 17% or less,” the report added.
In Iran, the ICC cited the election of “relatively moderate politicians, akin to Masoud Pezeshikian in 2024,” as a “popular rebellion” that will suggest that “the [theocratic] regime’s control just isn’t absolute.”
