Not all bad news
Stories of Christians fighting back, holding fast and being helped in the midst of persecution.
Christians staged a sit-in at a church in Egypt on 17 July to protest about the building’s continued closure, which has forced them to hold another funeral on the streets. Members of the 2,500-strong Christian community in Koum al-Raheb village, close to the city of Samalout, agreed to end their protest only after police assured them a way would be found to provide a licensed church in the village.
Christians have already had to hold at least three funeral services on the streets since 9 December 2018 when police closed what is the only church in Koum al-Raheb on the very day it opened, because it is unlicensed.
Church leaders met local politicians and security officials in March in an attempt to find a solution to the impasse that has arisen because the new, four-storey church falls between the provisions of two laws. Its construction began before September 2016, when the new Law for Building and Restoring Churches was introduced. However, it was completed after the September 2017 deadline for applications to legalise unlicensed existing churches under previous legal provisions.
Church leaders have rejected as “utterly unfeasible” the authorities’ suggestion that they build another church on vacant land across the road from the present building. Of the 3,730 churches that originally applied for a licence after the Law for Building and Restoring Churches was introduced, 2,709 are still awaiting registration. These new registrations were in addition to church buildings that were already licensed before the law was introduced in 2016.
Christian street preacher awarded £2,500 by police for wrongful arrest in London
Christian street preacher Oluwole Ilesanmi, who had his Bible taken from him and was led away in handcuffs by police, has been awarded £2,500 compensation for wrongful arrest, it was reported on 27 July.
The 64-year-old was arrested as he preached the Gospel outside Southgate Tube Station, north London, on 23 February by two officers, who said they were acting “in order to prevent a breach of the peace”. However, it is not lawful for a police officer to order someone to stop preaching unless their actions incite violence. Mr Ilesanmi, a former dentist who moved from Nigeria in 2010, has welcomed the Metropolitan Police payout, which includes compensation for his humiliating and distressing treatment.
He said, “I am glad that the police have recognised that it was not right to arrest me for preaching from the Bible … It was traumatic being arrested. But I was determined to get back to Southgate and start preaching the Gospel again.” Mr Ilesanmi delivered a petition to the Home Office on 30 July, signed by more than 45,000 people, asking for greater protection for street preachers.
Barnabas sends urgent aid to Christians, including 433 children, in danger of being killed by terrorists in Mali
Desperate Christians, including 433 children, facing attacks or fleeing from rampaging Islamist extremists in Mali, have been sent urgent aid by Barnabas Fund. The jihadists slaughtered more than 100 Christians in just one attack on Sobame Da. Hundreds of Christians have fled their villages in the central Mopti district, escaping with nothing but the clothes they are wearing, and abandoning livestock, food stores and all possessions.
Barnabas Fund is helping a total of 785 people, some displaced and some remaining in villages, including 433 children and 20 widows. It has set up an appeal with the aim of raising £43,995 to cover the costs of emergency aid essentials including rice, mattresses, buckets, mosquito nets and hygiene kits.
The single worst incident so far was the horror inflicted on the mainly-Christian village of Sobame Da by the Islamist extremists who attacked it on 10 June. They slaughtered everyone they could find, including women, children and elderly. The victims were shot or burned alive in their own homes. Perhaps as many as 135 people were killed but the exact death toll is hard to establish because of the extreme charring of some of the bodies.
Those fleeing are heading for safer areas, but these places have insufficient food, shelter, drinking water and sanitary facilities to support them. “People continue to move because where they were living they risked being killed by terrorists,” wrote a Christian leader in Mali to Barnabas Fund in July. Some villagers opted to stay in their homes, but they dare not go out to work their fields or graze their animals, for fear of being killed.
Since 2016 jihadists have been waging a war to occupy north and central Mali with the declared aim of establishing sharia (Islamic law) throughout the country.
Elderly Nigerian imam given award for saving 262 Christians from Muslim extremists
An elderly Muslim leader who saved the lives of hundreds of Christians fleeing a murderous attack by Muslim Fulani militants in Nigeria, received an award recognising his courage on 17 July.
Imam, Abubakar Abdullahi, was given the US International Religious Freedom Award for selflessly risking his own life on 23 June 2018 to “save members of another religious community” when the militants attacked at least ten villages in the Barkin Ladi Local Government Area in Plateau State, killing scores of Christians and burning homes in a two-day rampage. The 83- year-old imam sheltered 262 fleeing Christians, hiding women and children in his home and the men in the mosque in Nghar village. Abdullahi then confronted the gunmen and refused them access, insisting everyone inside was Muslim.
He said later that he wanted to help because, 40 years previously, Christians in the area had allowed Muslims to build the mosque. He said it was the first time he had experienced such “an ugly incident” in all the years that Muslims had lived in a neighbouring village to the Christian farmers.
Christians escape with lives as Boko Haram militants step up attacks on northern Cameroon villages
About 200 families escaped with their lives when Boko Haram Islamist militants ransacked a mainly-Christian village in the Far North Region of Cameroon on 10 July. Following several previous Boko Haram raids in the area, the families were sleeping in the bush to avoid further attacks when the armed gang stormed Roum village, in the Tourou area, setting fire to homes, killing livestock and plundering food stores and possessions.
A Barnabas contact said the villagers had lost everything and are now taking refuge at a local school. He estimated around 1,120 families in the area were “living in distress” following the attack on Roum, and Boko Haram’s destructive onslaughts on other villages including Goldavi on 5 July, Zeleved on 10 July and Amchide on 11 July. He said, “The populations have all lost food stocks, clothing, sleeping sets and many other material goods and animals. These attacks led to great fear, psychosis, trauma and panic among the populations.”
The contact reported there had been a resurgence of attacks by Boko Haram since January 2019. He added that the impact of the onslaught is especially devastating because July, August and September are the lean months between harvests in Cameroon. It is also the rainy season when many roads turn to mud, and the security forces are less mobile. Christian villages in the far north of Cameroon are subject to attacks by Boko Haram militias attempting to establish an Islamic caliphate from north-eastern Nigeria all the way to northern Cameroon, which is predominantly Christian. The UN estimates that more than 170,000 Cameroonians, mainly Christians, have been forced to flee their homes by Boko Haram.
Middle Eastern Christians flown to Australia by Barnabas Fund to escape life-threatening persecution
More than 100 Middle Eastern Christians in constant danger of violence or even death have already been flown in 2019 to Australia, with help from Barnabas Fund, where they have been given the government’s permission to settle. By the end of June, Barnabas Fund’s Operation Safe Havens had enabled 25 Christian families to escape antiChristian persecution after the Australian government agreed to grant them visas.
The twenty-sixth family was that of Iraqi Christian housewife “Dwura” and her story is a prime example of the relentless persecution that led the Australian government to step in and help these people start afresh in an environment of peace and stability. The date 31 May 2006 is seared on Dwura’s memory. On this day her brother-in-law was gunned down by terrorists in an industrial area of Mosul, the ancient Biblical city of Nineveh. The terrorists asked him for his identity card and, when they saw he was a Christian, shot him in the head and chest.
“From this date onwards we lived in fear,” she said. Nevertheless the family hung on in their town in the Plains of Nineveh, a region where Christians have lived for nearly two millennia. But things only got worse for Christians when Islamic State (IS) terrorists began to establish themselves and move out across Iraq.
In August 2014, Dwura’s town fell to IS fighters and the family fled for their lives, with tens of thousands of other Christians from the Plains of Nineveh. Two years later the Iraqi army freed Dwura’s town from IS control, but the family home had been destroyed. So had the homes of Dwura’s brothers and sisters.
“After the liberation our areas were exposed to a tough occupation by the militias,” says Dwura. “Christians lost hope because they couldn’t take any steps without approval from the militias.” One of Dwura’s daughters became seriously affected mentally, due to the anti Christian pressure – all she had ever known throughout her young life.
Eventually Dwura and her husband felt they had no option but to take their three children and leave their homeland of Iraq to start a new life somewhere they could live freely as Christians. With visas from the Australian government and financial help from Barnabas Fund’s Operation Safe Havens, they were flown to Australia.
Christian wins free speech battle in UK Court of Appeal
Christian Felix Ngole, thrown out of a UK university because of a private Facebook post he made on same-sex marriage, won his freedom of speech campaign in a landmark judgment by the Court of Appeal on 3 July.
The judges ruled the university had “wrongly confused the expression of religious views with the notion of discrimination”. The mere expression of such theological views as homosexuality being a “sin” did not mean a person of faith “will discriminate on such grounds”. The 41-year-old was thrown off his MA course in social work at the University of Sheffield in 2016, after quoting from the Bible to defend a US official jailed for refusing to register a same-sex marriage because of her religious beliefs.
Ngole, who arrived in Britain in 2003 as an asylum seeker after fleeing persecution in his native Cameroon for his religious beliefs, posted that the official had done nothing wrong and was only expressing her beliefs as a Christian. He wrote, “The Bible and God identify homosexuality as a sin … same sex-marriage is a sin whether we like it or not.”
The university stated that his post “may have caused offence to some individuals” and ruled Ngole had “transgressed boundaries which are not deemed appropriate for someone entering the social work profession” – a decision upheld by the UK’s High Court in 2017. Ngole, who took a job as a carer after his hopes of becoming a social worker were dashed, said, “This is great news … for everyone who cares about freedom of speech. As Christians we are called to care for and serve others, and publicly and privately we must be free to express our beliefs, without fear of losing our livelihoods.”
Christian women and children suffering jail nightmare in Sudan helped by Barnabas-aided prison ministry
Barnabas is helping fund a prison ministry in Sudan to aid Christian women who have been jailed, often with their children, for infringing strict sharia (Islamic) law. In 2018, more than 1,200 detainees were helped, including about 150 children. Fines were paid for 49 women, enabling them to leave harsh prison life and go home. Christian women can be put in prison simply for letting a little hair show or for sleeves that expose their wrists. Or for travelling on a bus without a man to accompany them.
Recently, “Jemima”, a local university student, was jailed for “acting against Sudan” by leading a Bible study group where she was thrilled to welcome young Muslim women. Sharia strongly opposes the conversion of Muslims and Christians sharing the Gospel are likely to face some kind of charge against them. The Barnabas-supported prison ministry provides these women with spiritual support through a Christian chaplain – many become much stronger in their faith during their time in prison and are more active in their local churches after their release.
Barnabas also pays their legal expenses and fines, as well as providing basic needs such as blankets and medicines. Until her fine is paid, a woman cannot leave prison even if she has completed her sentence. The ministry continues to care for women who have been recently released, helping them to find work to support themselves.