Christian Persecution – Africa

Several Christian rights organizations have launched a massive campaign to highlight the plight of roughly 1,800 Christians in Eritrea who are held in prisons, military camps and even shipping containers, and will release an album of an incarcerated Eritrean Gospel singer, BosNewsLife monitored Saturday, June 3.

With Cairo reeling from two weeks of clashes between thousands of police and demonstrators over the trial of two judges, Egypt appears to have forgotten its promises to investigate the April 14 stabbing of Christians in Alexandria.

Christians in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province worshipped Sunday, May 14, amid concerns over the future of their award-winning Good News Community Radio (GNCR) which was ordered to stop broadcasting by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), officials said.

Two Anglican priests in Nigeria were out of their comas Friday, May 5, after crowds of traditional animists reportedly beat them nearly to death and destroyed their properties for ‘making gods angry’ with church services.

Facing threats from a local Muslim militia leader, Christians in central Sudan have decided to leave their church half-built after it went up in flames the day after Christmas last year.

A native missionary in Guinea was without his wife Thursday, April 20, after she was kidnapped by her family, in a case that has come to symbolize tensions between minority Christians and members of other traditional religious groups in the West African nation.

Besides the jailing of another Protestant pastor in February, authorities have also jailed 70 Muslims over the past two years for opposing the government appointment of the chief mufti.

Four terrified Christian women, including one suffering from AIDS, remained inside a besieged evangelical church in an Ethiopian city Thursday, April 13, which has been attacked by militants fearing its growing influence in the region, investigators said.

Two female Christian students remained missing Monday, April 10, after hard-line Muslims attacked them last month in a case that has underscored concern over violence against young Christian women in the African nation, news reports said.

After three months, an Egyptian Christian has reportedly discovered his “kidnapped” sister living with a Muslim family near her hometown and professing faith in Islam, BosNewsLife monitored Wednesday, April 5.

“If you are forcing me to marry a man who is a Muslim simply because of my decision to become a Christian, then I will rather have you kill me than accept to marry this man.”

Evangelical Christians in Algeria faced another tense day Friday, March 31, after the Algerian parliament approved a law banning the promotion of other religions than Islam, BosNewsLife learned.

Florence Chuckwu, a Christian teacher at the Government Day Secondary School in the capital of Bauchi state, went to work on the morning of February 20 with no hint that her attempt to exercise classroom control would threaten her life and lead to the killing of more than 20 believers.

Several key Christian human rights groups have launched a united campaign against what they see as “widespread religious repression” in the Eastern African nation of Eritrea where they claim at least 1,700 Christians are detained for their faith.

A presidential order that establishes new conditions for the exercise of non-Muslim religious practice was passed in the Algerian Ummah council (Senate) on Monday 13 March, and in the Algerian National Assembly (Parliament) on 15 March. As a presidential order, the text would not have even been open to debate.

At least 11 people were killed in three Nigerian cities Friday, February 24, as fighting between Christians and Muslims further escalated, rising the overall death toll to nearly 160, several news reports said.

A Nigerian state imposed a curfew late Monday, February 20, after new religious riots reportedly killed at least 10 people, while the death toll from a weekend of attacks against Christians was put at over 50.