Christians from India, Nigeria and Iraq detail the persecution their communities face

”We depend on the prayer of fellow believers to pray to bring peace so that people will come back to their native land..."

Father Thabet Habib evaluates the inside of a burned out church right in Karamles,
Iraq right after the town's liberation from the Islamic State in October 2016.\
 |(Photo: Archdiocese of Erbil)

By Samuel Smith

Christian Post

At the rollout of Open Doors USA’s annual top-50 listof countries where Christians are most persecuted, Christians from Africa, Asia and the Middle East shared how persecution has affected their families and communities.

Last week, the nondenominational ministry that monitors persecution in more than 70 countries, released its 2019 World Watch List at an event held at a Heritage Foundation office in Capitol Hill.

As was the case in past years, Open Doors invited Christians from different countries to share their own stories of persecution.

The Christian Post spoke with believers from India, Iraq, Nigeria and one undisclosed South Asian country about the violence they and their communities have faced.

Rev. Dogo is a church leader from the Yobe state of Nigeria, which is located in the northeastern part of the nation.

Dogo explained how the Islamic militant group Boko Haram has attacked communities and how his own congregation has dramatically decreased in the last eight years because of various types of violence against the Christian community.

Dogo said that the most severe persecution the Christian community in Yobe faced came during the post-election riots in 2011.

In 2011, Goodluck Jonathan — a Christian from the south — defeated Muhammadu Buhari — a Muslim from the north — in the presidential election. Hundreds were killed and thousands were displaced as a result of 2011 post-election riots.

“Goodluck Jonathan won the election and that post-election riots led to the burning of not less than 50 churches in Yobe,” Dogo explained. “From there, immediately after that post-election riot, then the [persecution] of Boko Haram began in 2012 and it is a common thing that is on and on and on moving up to today.”

Based in northeast Nigeria, Boko Haram is regarded as one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups and is responsible for thousands of deaths and kidnappings. In 2014, Boko Haram reportedly killed more people than the Islamic State did in Iraq or Syria.

“So what they do is attack people, kill, bomb and destroy houses or communities or businesses,” Dogo said.

Since the 2011 post-election, Dogo said that the Christian community in Yobe has dropped nearly in half as many Christians have fled to other states.

“The church that I was pastoring as of then that used to have not less than 700 people is reduced to 100 or even less 100 every Sunday,” Dogo said. “They just run and left the state. They fled to Plateau and some other middle part of the country.”

Dogo is calling on Christians around the world to pray that the Christians will return to Yobe state.

”We depend on the prayer of fellow believers to pray to bring peace so that people will come back to their native land,” he said. “In Nigeria, your citizenship stems from the place of your birth. If you leave that area, you don’t have any part of Nigeria that is designated for you to call your own.”

Continue reading article here

Persecution Unveiled has been called to prick the consciences of this nation and all free people to pray for, speak up and act on behalf of those who are persecuted for their faith. Follow us on Pinterest, and Google and like us on Facebook.

The Last Christians: Priest Describes Horror, Courage of Christians Being Killed for Their Faith

Andreas Knapp and two Little Sisters of Jesus visiting a family 

from Qaraqosh, Iraq, now living in Iraqi Kurdistan in this undated photo.

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

German author and Catholic priest Andreas Knapp traveled to Iraq where he heard about a young boy who was brutally killed simply for his cross necklace.

"In Mosul, IS terrorists stopped a boy in the street because he was wearing a small cross around his neck. They ordered him to throw it away, and when he steadfastly refused, they buried him alive," Knapp wrote in his newly "Ireleased book, The Last Christians: Stories of Persecution, Flight, and Resilience in the Middle East.

"Whenever I hear stories like this and meet Christians of such courage, I can't help but wonder: How much is my faith worth to me? How high a price would I be prepared to pay?"

The story is only one of the countless tragedies Knapp witnessed or heard about from survivors and church and human rights workers when traveling to Iraq to speak with Christians who are being wiped out for their faith.

He shares many of those shocking stories as well as accounts of incredible courage in his book.

"I never fail to be impressed by the deep faith displayed by Eastern Christians. For the sake of Jesus Christ, they have suffered all kinds of harassment and even given up their homeland. Friends and relatives — including children — have paid for their Christian beliefs with their lives," Knapp wrote.

The book explores fundamental questions about the future of Christianity, particularly when it concerns Aramaic Christians: Will they be killed off or scattered as refugees across the world, losing forever the language that Jesus spoke and their homelands where they lived for two millennia?

The Last Christians, which was released in September, also investigates some of the political currents that led to the formation of the Islamic State, such as the U.S.-led war on Iraq and dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It describes a number of the severe attacks Christians have suffered at the hands of IS, but also from other extremist groups, including al-Qaeda, which increased its attacks on civilians after 2003.

Churches in Mosul were bombed, Christian schools were threatened with destruction unless the students converted to Islam, 5-year-old children were shot dead on their way to mass, and Christian girls were raped for refusing to wear veils, the author described. Now with the rise of IS, thousands of Yazidi and Christian women and young girls are being sold in modern-day slave markets.

Accounts tell of young women being raped for days by dozens of men, begging to be killed in order for the torture to stop, but only to be met with laughter and cynical remarks. One Christian girl who suffered "bestial abuse" at the hands of IS took rat poison to end her life, suffering a long, drawn-out death.

Other stories, such as one from the ancient Christian town of Sadat, tell of 45 men, women and children who were tortured, killed, and buried in a mass grave by radicals. Some of the young men were taken prisoners, but those who refused to renounce their faith and embrace Islam where shot dead.

Christian Post article continues here