A vast oblong of Islamist, authoritarian, or sectarian persecution stretches from Egypt, Eritrea, Turkey, and Sudan, all the way to China and North Korea, across India and Pakistan. According to a recent report published by Aid to the Church in Need, “the persecution of Christians is today worse than at any time in history.”
On the African continent, predominantly Christian nations experience the full threat of a growing tide of Islamist militancy. Already reeling from mass genocide and expulsion at the hands of Boko Haram (whose casualties include some 1.8 million displaced persons, five thousand widows, 15,000 orphans, and more than two hundred desecrated churches and chapels), the Christians of Nigeria now have to contend with new militant factions. The Fulani herdsmen have terrorized country parishes across the nation's northern and central provinces in recent months, in what more and more secular and religious leaders are recognizing as a targeted Islamist persecution.
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