Breitbart published this important article today:
ROME — Global Christian persecution spread still further during 2021, according to the Christian charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
In an interview Thursday with Vatican News, ACN’s Italian director Alessandro Monteduro reported that currently, some 416 million Christians live in “lands of persecution,” where they are exposed daily to risks of harassment, discrimination, and violence because of their faith.
The year 2021 was “another year of pain of suffering” for persecuted Christians around the world, Monteduro said and for all those concerned with the right to religious freedom.
On the African continent, the suffering of Christian communities is worsening because of “a progressive radicalization and expansion of jihadist phenomena,” Monteduro stated.
“Across Africa, from sub-Saharan Africa to East Africa, there are at least a couple dozen terrorist organizations that have the ambition, from their point of view, to install caliphates in their territories,” he added, “such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali, Cameroon, or northern Nigeria.”
“In Burkina Faso, for example, a country that until 2015 only knew peaceful coexistence between the different communities and tribes,” he continued, “now 60 percent of the country is no longer reachable in order to help the populations on a humanitarian level, according to World Health Organization.”
Regarding Asia, Monteduro pointed out recent state harassment of the Missionary Sisters of Charity — the congregation Mother Teresa of Calcutta founded — who have been accused of proselytism.
The same thing has happened in other Asian countries, such as Myanmar, “where even in the last few hours there has been an anti-Christian attack with 35 dead,” he noted.
“It also takes place in Pakistan, where the terrible drama continues of the many young women and girls, kidnapped and converted by force, raped and forced to marry their kidnapper,” he said.
“These are all phenomena that unfortunately do not provoke an adequate outrage,” he added. “They are denounced by many charity agencies and church organizations, but there is insufficient outrage.”
“There is too much indifference to these tragedies,” he said.
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