Iraqi Christian Rita was sold four times on the IS sex slave market
Rita, a Christian woman from the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, was 26 when Islamic State invaded her town and took her captive. She was sold and . . . Read More
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Did Mozambique beheadings signal emergence of jihad in southern Africa?
Recent attacks attributed to Islamist militants in Mozambique have raised alarms over the emergence of a jihadist movement in the southern half of Africa – a section of the continent previously relatively untroubled by violent Islamist extremism. Little, if anything, was known about the group behind the attacks, in October. . . Read More
Indonesia: How women and children became agents of terror
Terrorism in Indonesia is now carried out by “entire families, including mothers and children”, one local police chief noted, three weeks on from the suicide blasts on three churches and a police station that claimed 27 lives, including 13 attackers. In raids following the series of bomb attacks, Jakarta security. . . Read More
Report: Latin American states failing Christians by overlooking ‘criminal freedom’
A new report looking into the “endemic phenomena” of organised crime and corruption in Latin America highlights the failure of governments to protect active Christians from violence. The inability or unwillingness of Latin American governments to stop organised crime encourages a “criminal freedom” that “makes specific sectors within society become. . . Read More
Report: ‘Islamic war of expansion’ underpins ‘religious cleansing’ in southern Kaduna, Nigeria
A new report highlights Nigeria’s failed attempts, over decades, to deal with the violence perpetrated by Fulani Muslim herdsmen in one of the country’s Middle Belt states. It concludes that continued failings will force Christians to leave the area in a “religious cleansing” that is part of a drive for. . . Read More
Islamism’s spread challenges religious rights
To coincide with the launch of Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch List, which ranks the 50 countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian, researchers at the charity have identified two major trends accompanying faith-based persecution. One of those is Islamic extremism. When a Filipino city of. . . Read More
Nationalism: religion as a form of belonging – and exclusion
To coincide with the launch of Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch List, which ranks the 50 countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian, researchers at the charity have identified two major trends accompanying faith-based persecution. One of those is nationalism. Nationalism is a powerful tool in. . . Read More
Nigeria: when Fulani herdsmen and farmers clash
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
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
Why are attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christians getting worse?
Attacks on Christians in Egypt have intensified in brutality because of an influx of arms and foreign jihadis, lax border security and increased local hostility to non-Muslims, according to a leading UK academic. Dr Mariz Tadros of Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies said that the suicide attack on a. . . Read More
Central African Republic – the world’s most neglected conflict
In a report on 5 June, Human Rights Watch noted that “violence in the Central African Republic has fallen from the world’s radar, but that does not mean the killings have let up. Over a dozen armed groups now roam the country, committing a range of abuses. Violence is on. . . Read More
