Christians Under Siege from Islamists

Victims of a Boko Haram attack lie dead in the streets of Nigeria. Photo: informationnigeria.org.

Raymond Ibrahim provides another vivid, disturbing monthly report on Islamist persecution of Christians around the world.

Perhaps the most dangerous place to be a Christian today is Pakistan, which in May had “the lion’s share of persecuted Christians,” Ibrahim writes. Incidents there covered “the entire gamut of persecution – from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.”

In sub-Saharan African countries such as Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya and the Ivory Coast, “wherever Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified,” Ibrahim writes.

In Nigeria, “Muslim gunmen set fire to a home in a Christian village and then opened fire on all who tried to escape the inferno.” At least seven people were killed and many others wounded in the attack, one of dozens against Nigerian Christians.

In northern Mali, “rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out,” Christian Today reported May 22. “Christian charity Worldshare warns that there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, and that people have been tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.”

In Islamist-controlled northern cities like Timbuktu, there are reports that properties owned by Christians have been destroyed. Many Christian refugees have fled south to Bamako, the Malian capital.

In Egypt, a court acquitted eight Muslims who torched Christian homes of all charges while sentencing 12 Christians who fought them in the streets last April to life in prison. In another case, a judge dismissed all charges against a group of Muslim men who cut off a Christian man’s ear in an effort to force him to convert to Islam.