Muslim persecution of Christians continues to explode.
(Morning Star News) – Last year Egypt saw its greatest level of attacks on Christians; more Christians were killed in Syria’s civil war than anywhere else; and an Islamist rebel take-over in the Central African Republic brought new atrocities to the historically unstable country. But where political instability and civil war were not contributing factors, the greatest targeting of Christians primarily for their faith took place in Nigeria (even if oppression overall was worse in North Korea and Saudi Arabia). The stories have become so repetitive that they risk becoming at once routine and unbearable; on the ground, however, Nigerian Christians refuse to give in to the trauma. Their faith shines, even in the face of new causes for fear in 2013: The line blurred between terrorist groups and attacking tribal herdsmen, and government soldiers stationed to protect Christians sometimes killed them.
1 – Christians Terrorized in Nigeria
Monthly, if not weekly, Islamic extremist violence in Nigeria quietly took the lives of at least 700 Christians in villages throughout the central and northern parts of the country in 2013.
Relying on dubious second-hand sources, most Nigerian and international media misrepresented the killings as the result of ethnic/cattle disputes or, when tribal and property tensions were present, downplayed the fundamental religious motives. In the attacks by ethnic Fulani, Muslim herdsmen on Christians asleep in their homes in central and northern Nigeria, first-hand accounts by survivors to Morning Star News indicated the assailants were not always the usual suspects: sometimes they were dressed in military camouflage rather than their tribal dress; their weapons were more sophisticated and more numerous than in previous years; some wore bullet-proof vests; they were not identified as local people; and they included foreign mercenaries from surrounding countries. Tens of thousands of villagers were displaced as children, women and senior citizens were slaughtered in their beds for their faith.
“From all indications, the terrorism being witnessed in the country is purely in pursuit of jihad,” the Rev. Yiman Orkwar, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Makurdi in Benue state, told
Morning Star News. “In Benue state, Fulani terrorists in collaboration with Boko Haram and other foreign mercenaries are causing wanton destruction of lives and property.”
Boko Haram, a Nigerian rebel group that includes mercenaries from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, seeks to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria, and the terrorist organization has ties to Al Qaeda. Christian leaders fear they are inciting and supporting Muslim herdsmen in a bid to Islamicize traditionally Christian areas.
Suspected terrorists from Boko Haram set off four bombs that hit two churches in Kano city on July 29, killing at least 45 people, sources said. Christians were meeting at Christ Salvation Pentecostal Church when one explosion hit, and 39 bodies were recovered in the area, Christian leaders said. Christians were also meeting at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church as another bomb went off, and an explosion apparently targeting Peniel Baptist Church did not affect the structure.
Prosecutions were rare, reports of slow-arriving security forces were frequent, and at times the
Special Task Force assigned to protect against attacks, or other
soldiers, appeared to be the killers.
2 – Syria’s Civil War Leaves Christians Vulnerable to Atrocities
Fighting between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the Syrian National Coalition, which includes a substantial faction of Islamic terrorist groups, led to atrocities against civilians. For many Christians Assad’s government was the lesser of two evils, and jihadist rebels targeted Christians not only for their faith but for their presumed allegiance to the government; more than 2,000 Christians killed for their faith. The rebels’ main fighting force, Jahdat al-Nusra, is an extremist group with an ideology similar to that of Al Qaeda.
The Oct. 21 Islamist rebel siege of the predominantly Christian town of Sadad, 160 kilometers (95 miles) north of Damascus, left 45 civilians dead, including several women and children; many were thrown into mass graves. Archbishop Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, said other civilians were threatened and terrorized, with 30 wounded and 10 missing, and 1,500 families were held hostage as human shields for a week. Before Syrian government forces retook Sadad by Oct. 31, about 2,500 families had fled.
Rebel militias reportedly murdered Catholic Syrian priest François Murad on June 23. Islamic extremists abducted the Rev. Michael Kayal, 27, of the Armenian Catholic Church in Aleppo, as he rode a bus in February. Greek Orthodox priest Maher Mahfouz was also kidnapped. The Rev.
Paolo Dall’Oglio was reported missing on July 29. Dall’Oglio’s disappearance came three months after the kidnapping of the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox archbishops of Aleppo. Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and Yohanna Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church were kidnapped near the village of Kafr Dael on April 22 while returning from the Turkish border on a humanitarian relief trip.
Initially kidnappings of Christians in Syria were largely aimed at seeking ransom. But as Al Qaeda-linked groups established themselves in areas with sizable Christian populations, they began targeting Christians, threatening that they must convert to Islam or face rape, torture, murder and other aggression. Swedish journalist
Nuri Kino told Morning Star News that kidnappings, rapes and forcible conversions to Islam were common.
During the 12-month period ending Oct. 31, according to Christian support organization Open Doors, 2,123 Christians were reported to have been killed for their faith in Syria.
3 – Morsi Rule in Egypt, and His Ouster, Result in Attacks on Christians
Even before the deposing of Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt triggered widespread attacks against Christians, Islamic extremist violence against Coptic Christians reached a shocking a new high during his tenure.
Attacks in 2013 were more brazen as well as more frequent than in previous years, according to rights groups. More than 200 Muslim rioters attacked Coptic Christians attending a funeral service on April 7 at
St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo for four Copts killed two days earlier in an anti-Christian rampage. A Morning Star News reporter inside the cathedral compound observed firearms, flash-bang grenades, tear gas, stones, fire bombs and other improvised weapons used against Christians as police did nothing to stop the attack. Police also fired tear gas grenades into the compound. Almost three dozen Coptic Christians suffered injuries, and one was thought to have been killed; Mahrous Hanna Ibrahim reportedly died from gunshot wounds. The cathedral compound is the headquarters of the Coptic Orthodox Church, site of the Coptic pope’s home and a unifying symbol for Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians alike.
Some 30 million people began demonstrations against Morsi on June 30, but Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers singled out Christians to blame for his forced removal from power on July 3, and attacks began. Four Coptic Christians were killed near Luxor on July 5 in Al Dabaya, including 42-year-old Emil Naseem Saroufeem, a supporter of the opposition movement, and 20 homes were destroyed. By July 8, dozens of homes and businesses were burned to the ground, a handful of church buildings were attacked, and one church guest-house was destroyed, human rights activists said. On July 6 in Arish in Northern Sinai, masked gunmen shot and killed the Rev. Mina Aboud Sharubim, a Coptic priest.
On Aug. 6, a Coptic Christian girl walking home from a Bible class at her church was shot and killed in Cairo by an unidentified gunman. Rights groups said 10-year-old Jessica Boulous was killed while walking from church through a market to her home with her Sunday school teacher.
After Egyptian police cleared two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on Aug. 14-15 in confrontations that quickly escalated into gunfire, violence erupted throughout Egypt that reportedly resulted in attacks on 44 church buildings and scores of Christian institutions, businesses and homes. At least two Coptic Christians were killed. The attacks were scattered across the country, from The Church of Mar-Girgis, which was attacked in Arish in the northeast Sinai Peninsula, to churches in Giza outside of Cairo, to churches and religious facilities in Upper Egypt. Most of the attacks happened in Minya Governorate, with the city of Assiut following close behind.
On Oct. 20, a drive-by, machine-gun attack on Coptic Christians filing into the Church of the Holy Virgin and the Archangel Michael in Giza, in the Al-Warraq area of greater Cairo, for a
wedding killed four people, including the mother of the groom, 62-year-old Camilia Helmy Attyia. Also killed were Mariam Ashraf Mesiha, 8; Mariam Nabil Fahmy Azer, 12; and Samir Fahmy Azer, 46. Hours after the two assailants on a motorcycle sprayed the waiting crowd outside the church building with bullets, the couple was married very late that night, dressed in mourning black, the brother of the groom told Morning Star News. Three people attended the ceremony.
In the course of the year, at least 83 Christians in Egypt were killed for their faith, according to the
World Watch List of Christian support organization Open Doors.
