The Christian aid organization Open Doors published its annual World Watch List – a ranking of the most dangerous places in the world to practice the Christian faith – on Wednesday, which found that 380 million Christians around the world face severe persecution.
Christian persecution – which Open Doors defines as “any hostile action toward a person or community motivated by their identification with the person of Jesus Christ” – is particularly prevalent in countries with widespread Islamist terrorism or run by communist regimes. Of the top ten countries on the World Watch List, Islamic radicalism is the driver of persecution in eight of them, while the other two, North Korea and Eritrea, are under the yoke of communist regimes.
Of the 380 million Christians facing persecution, in many cases including deadly attacks, 310 million of them are in the top ten nations on the list. Half of these countries are in Africa and three are in the Middle East. Afghanistan is in South Asia; North Korea is an outlier in the Far East region, though bordering the number 15 country on the list, its longtime patron China.
The number of Christians facing violence, displacement, arrest, sexual violence, or other persecution around the world has steadily increased throughout the 2020s. This year’s tally is 20 million more Christians than the total Open Doors identified in the 2022 edition of its study. In 2020, Open Doors estimated that 260 million Christians faced “high levels of persecution.”
The 2025 edition of the World Watch List covers the events of 2024 – which included a rapid increase in radical Islamic terrorism in the African Sahel region, the spread of Chinese influence in several top repressor countries, and the seizure of power in Syria by the al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). […]
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