News

75,000 children in N. Nigeria risk ‘dying of hunger’; 14 million need humanitarian aid, says UN

  November 18, 2016 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Cameroon, Chad, Gwoza, IDPs, Niger, UN, Yobe

The UN says 75,000 children are at risk of dying of hunger in north-east Nigeria.Open Doors International   Seventy-five thousand children are at risk of dying of hunger in north-east Nigeria, reports the UN, as the region deals with the aftermath of Boko Haram violence. The UN also says that . . . Read More

UPDATE: Ethiopian girls in prison for a book ‘countering attacks on Christianity’

  November 16, 2016 Ethiopia Addis Ababa, Babile, Ethiopia, Harar

Three teenage Christian girls yesterday (15 Nov.) appeared in court in Babile, some 550km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, charged with inciting religious violence. The girls, whose names were given as Eden, 15, Gifti, 14, and Mihiret, 14 – together with an older girl, named Deborah – were . . . Read More

‘Coming back’ – a poem scribbled on a church wall in Homs

  November 15, 2016 Syria Homs, Maaloula

Time has almost faded the message written on a church wall in Homs by someone who, like thousands of others, presumably had to flee the city quickly for safety or survival. The Syrian city, 166km north of Damascus, was soon taken over by Islamic fighters. Fierce fighting made living in . . . Read More

Child marriage becoming a ‘cloud of crisis’ – N. Nigerian Christian leaders warn President

  November 15, 2016 Bayelsa, Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Children, ECWA, Hisbah, Katsina, Marriage, Nigeria, Sharia, Sultan of Sokoto

When the Northern States’ Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) recently met President Buhari at his Presidential Villa (3 Nov), they asked him to warn Northern Nigeria’s traditional rulers against child marriage. They said the trend was already gathering “a cloud of crisis” and would cause a serious crisis if not . . . Read More

Moldova – striving to make a difference despite corruption and suspicion

  November 14, 2016 Moldova Moldova, Russia, Soviet Union, Transnistria

Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. To the east, cushioned between the Ukraine and Romania, and currently in the process of applying for European Union membership, it has this weekend decided its new President will be the pro-Russian candidate, who wants to reverse integration into the EU. (The winner, . . . Read More

‘So afraid I almost fainted’ – Iran Christian on brother’s arrest

  November 11, 2016 Iran Converts, Evin Prison, Iran, Tehran

It was just another day at the office for accountant Sepideh*. The phone rang and Sepideh reached over her desk to answer it, not knowing that this call would be the start of years of worries. “Sepideh, quick!” The voice of her mother sounded nervous. “They arrested your brother and . . . Read More

Bishop’s wife saved husband from Iranian extremists, but lost her only son

  November 11, 2016 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran, Isfahan, Mehdi Dibaj, Tehran

Margaret and her husband, the Bishop of Iran, lost their son in 1980 during the anti-Christian hostility of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.Dehqani-Tafti family   A woman has just been buried by her husband in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral; famous figures such as Jane Austen lie inside it. Margaret Dehqani-Tafti, who . . . Read More

6 steps to being a ‘refugee’ in your own country

  November 11, 2016 Iraq Erbil, IDPs, Iraq, Nineveh Plains, Refugees

Tens of thousands of Christian families were chased from their homes in north-eastern Iraq when Islamic State jihadists invaded the Nineveh Plains in summer 2014. At first they expected to return within a few days. But the days became weeks, the weeks months, and the months years. World Watch Monitor traces . . . Read More

‘Worship in the woods’ a year after Islamic extremists destroy Aceh churches

  November 10, 2016 Indonesia Aceh, Churches, Indonesia, Islamic extremism, Sharia

Churches destroyed a year ago by Islamic extremists and police in Aceh Singkil – a rural ‘regency’ in Indonesia’s only Sharia-ruled province – have still not been rebuilt because of discrimination against Christians by local authorities, say church leaders. However, despite the troubles, church membership is climbing. Hardliners started destroying . . . Read More

Syrian Christian pastor -“I don’t feel ‘seduced’ to leave Aleppo”

  November 9, 2016 Syria Aleppo

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the country’s raging war, is in the grip of continuous violence. East Aleppo is bombed almost daily by Syrian and Russian air forces; its west is frequently shelled by the rebels from the east. Only a small number of the more than 200,000 ‘pre-war’ Christians . . . Read More