Attacks on Christians Increasing Globally

Christians under attack worldwide at a rapidly rising rate


By Christopher Vondracek - The Washington Times - Monday, April 22, 2019
Violence against Christians — like the bomb attacks that killed at least 311
people in Catholic churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — has
been escalating steadily over the past few years, international observers
say.

In just the past few weeks, stark reminders of the danger Christians face
around the world abound: an underground priest is dragged from his
pickup truck in Xuanhua Diocese in China, a Christian couple in India are
beaten by a father accusing them of trying to convert his son, 17 Christians
are killed during a child dedication service in Nigeria.
Open Doors USA, a mission for persecuted Christians, estimates that violent
attacks on the faithful doubled from 2017 to 2018, with approximately 11
Christians dying every day for their faith.




“There’s a specic pattern of violence around Christian holy days, such as
Easter and Christmas,” said Sarah Cunningham, senior director of
communications for Open Doors USA.
Nearly 50 worshippers were killed on Palm Sunday 2017 by bombers who
targeted Coptic Christians in Cairo. That same year, at Bethel Memorial
Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, nine Christians were killed a week
before Christmas by suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State.
Whereas international organizers tracking attacks against Christians a
generation ago concentrated on the ocially atheistic Soviet Union, today
the focus is on militant and extremist Muslim factions.

“Militant Islamic camps are denitely one of the primary sources of
Christian persecution in these countries,” said Ms. Cunningham, noting that
Christians are being targeted beyond the former borders of the nowscattered Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Sunday’s attacks occurred in largely Buddhist Sri Lanka, where the
percentage of Muslims and Christians is in the single digits. News reports
suggest that Sri Lankan authorities were slow to respond to growing threats
against Christians, who account for less than 8% of the nation’s 23 million
people.
“Often these nations lack the resources or the desire to confront
[persecution against Christians],” Ms. Cunningham said.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the main
victims of religious terrorism are overwhelmingly Muslim. It reported that of
the more than 70,000 deaths worldwide in 2017, 85% were Muslim.
Christians represented a fraction of the victims of religiously motivated
violence.