News

Historic Armenian Cathedral desecrated in southeast Turkey

  September 15, 2017 Turkey Diyarbakir, Kurds, Middle East, PKK, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Surp Giragos, Turkey

Eighteen months after the Turkish government seized control of the largest Armenian cathedral in the Middle East, secretly taken photographs inside Diyarbakir’s Surp Giragos Armenian Apostolic Church reveal considerable damage to the sanctuary and walls of the now desecrated church in southeast Turkey. Published by The Armenian Weekly, the exclusive . . . Read More

Eritrean Christian mother’s ‘isolation’ after church-leader husband imprisoned

  September 15, 2017 Eritrea Children, East Africa, Eritrea, Pentecostals, Women

World Watch Monitor reported a month ago how a mother of three, Fikadu Debesay, died in a desert camp where she had been imprisoned together with her husband. Their crime? Belonging to a non-sanctioned church in Eritrea. Like Debesay, Ruth is in her late 30s, has three children, and although not . . . Read More

Fr Tom: my faith got me through 18 months’ captivity

  September 14, 2017 Yemen Aden, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Ansar al-Sharia, Hodeidah, Islamic State, Pope Francis, Sana'a, Taiz, Tom Uzhunnalil, Yemen

The Indian missionary priest released this week after 18 months as a hostage in Yemen has said his Christian faith helped him to survive the ordeal. Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, a priest in the Salesian order, met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, the day after his release. The priest . . . Read More

Egypt: ex-kidnapper admits ‘they get paid for every Coptic Christian girl they bring in’

  September 14, 2017 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Kidnapping, Minya, Salafism, Women

“I remember a Coptic Christian girl from a rich, well-known family in Minya. She was kidnapped by five Muslim men. They held her in a house, stripped her and filmed her naked. In the video, one of them also undressed. They threatened to make the video public if the girl . . . Read More

Afghanistan: kidnapped Finnish woman freed after four months

  September 14, 2017 Afghanistan Afghanistan, Kabul, Kidnapping, Taliban

A Finnish aid worker held hostage for nearly four months in Afghanistan has been freed today (14 September). She had been kidnapped from an international guesthouse in Kabul, run by her employer, Operation Mercy, when it was attacked in May; her German female colleague and Afghan guard were killed. The unnamed . . . Read More

Egypt: Coptic churches ‘closed for security’ reopen

  September 12, 2017 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Anba Macarius, Copts, Egypt, Kom El-Loufy, Minya

Copts in the village of Ezbat Al-Forn, in the Minya governorate, have their church back after it was forced to close “for security reasons” last month, and celebrated this with a mass on Sunday morning (10 September) – the same day that another village church reopened elsewhere in Minya. The . . . Read More

Pakistani, 17, targeted by teacher and students, dies after beating on second day of high school

  September 12, 2017 Pakistan Burewala, Caste, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Islamic extremism, Mardan, Pakistan, Punjab, Sharoon Masih, Vehari

The mother of a 17-year-old Christian beaten to death in his classroom, on his second day in high school, has told the police that her son was “hated because of his religion”. Sharoon Masih was on only his second day at MC Model High School in Vehari, Punjab when it . . . Read More

Indian priest released after 18 months’ captivity in Yemen

  September 12, 2017 Yemen Aden, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Ansar al-Sharia, Hodeidah, Islamic State, Middle East, Sana'a, Taiz, Tom Uzhunnalil, Yemen

India’s Church, government and politicians from across the political landscape have all expressed relief and joy over the release of Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil, kidnapped in Yemen in March 2016. Statements hailing the release of the Indian priest have poured in – from India’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, to the . . . Read More

Nigeria: when Fulani herdsmen and farmers clash

  September 11, 2017 Nigeria Benue, ECWA, Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna, Middle Belt, Nasarawa, Nigeria

Many experts on Nigeria now believe that violence across the Middle Belt, which World Watch Monitor has reported at length, has been responsible for more deaths than Boko Haram. As Emmanuel Akinwotu wrote last year in the New Statesman, the conflict – between ‘indigenous’ settled farmers (mainly Christian) and nomadic . . . Read More

5 Things to know about violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt

  September 11, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Iran, Islamic extremism, Kaduna, Middle Belt, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Taraba, West Africa

In northern Nigeria, targeted violence against Christians comes not only from the Islamic militants of Boko Haram. Clashes with militants among the predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmen have claimed thousands of Christian lives in Nigeria’s Middle Belt – the handful of states straddling the pre-colonial line dividing Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north from . . . Read More