Stories tagged with: persecuted church

• Extremist group executes non-ethnic Muslims in Kenya

  by Staff/Morning Star News, posted Tuesday, December 10, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  iStock

  NAIROBI (BP) -- Suspected members of Somali Islamic extremist group Al Shabaab intercepted a bus in northern Kenya Friday Dec. 6, separated out those who were not local ethnic Somali Muslims and executed them, sources said.

  The Medina Bus Co. vehicle in route from Nairobi to Mandera had 56 people aboard when it was intercepted at 5:30 p.m. between Kutulu and Wargadud in Wajir County, where the population is largely ethnic Somali Kenyans, sources said. Read More

• Christian persecution spikes in Hindu-nationalist India

  by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, November 22, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  Morning Star News photo

  INDIA (BP) -- Regaining consciousness after attackers left him for dead in his house church in eastern India, pastor Basant Kumar Paul proclaimed he no longer fears persecution and is certain of his heavenly home.

  "My physical body might be weak, but my spirit is very strong, it will not break with persecution," Morning Star News quoted Paul Friday (Nov. 22). "They tried to kill me twice, I was almost dead, but I still did not die. I will not die until the Lord calls me back home. This assurance drives away all my fears." Read More

• Herdsmen kill two in Christian village in northern Nigeria

  by Staff/Morning Star News, posted Monday, November 18, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  Photo by Morning Star News.

  JOS, Nigeria (BP) -- Muslim Fulani herdsmen in north-central Nigeria on early Thursday morning (Nov. 14) hacked an 87-year-old Christian to death by machete and killed another by gunshot, an area resident said.

  A group of herdsmen attacked predominantly Christian Agom village in southern Kaduna state's Sanga Country at 4:30 a.m., area resident Gabriel Yakubu told Morning Star News by text message. Monday Kura, 87, and Emmanuel Agom, 48, both members of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ (ERCC), were killed as they slept in their rooms, he said. Read More

• ISIS kills 9, injures 71 in Syrian Christian attacks

  by Diana Chandler, posted Tuesday, November 12, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  iStock

  SYRIA, (BP) -- The Islamic State (formerly ISIS) is claiming responsibility for two attacks on Christians in northeast Syria that killed nine and wounded 71, as Christians continue to flee villages just outside a proposed safe zone at the Syria-Turkey border.

  An Armenian priest and his father were killed and a deacon was wounded in a car bomb attack as they drove from Qamishli in northeast Syria Monday (Nov. 11), persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) and others reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the attack and obtained video footage, ICC said. Read More

• U.S. pastor stranded in India awaiting hearing

  by Morning Star News/India Correspondent, posted Monday, November 04, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  American Center for Law and Justice photo

  NEW DELHI, India (BP) -- A U.S. pastor attending a Sunday School conference in India could be stranded there until December after being arrested for failing to report money he was carrying.

  Bryan Nerren, 58, was traveling to Sikkim state in northeastern India with two other U.S. pastors on Oct. 5 when they were detained at the Bagdogra airport, the closest airport to Sikkim. While the other two pastors were let go, Nerren was arrested when authorities alleged that he had violated the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the Customs Act by not declaring the cash that he was carrying for his trip and for conferences in India and Nepal. Read More

• China frees Christian prisoner amid ongoing persecution

  by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, October 25, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  China Aid photo

  CHINA (BP) -- China has freed an imprisoned Christian but continues a reign of persecution including church demolitions and restrictions barring foreign students from worship, religious liberty advocates reported.

  China released house church member Gou Zhongcan Oct. 22 after seven months in prison, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported Thursday (Oct. 24). Gou, a member of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) in Sichuan, had gone missing in March and was seen days later with several plainclothes police, witnesses told ICC. Police have taken into custody 150 members of the church since fall, 2018. Read More

• Persecuted Algerians 'confident in God,' convert says

  by Diana Chandler, posted Wednesday, October 23, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  Morning Star News photo

  ALGERIA (BP) -- Christians in Algeria "are optimistic and confident in God" in the midst of persecution, an Algerian convert told Baptist Press after the government closed churches and beat believers.

  "The believers in Algeria are passing through a difficult moment but they are not giving up despite difficult circumstances," said the Algerian Christian who accepted Christ at a church police have since shuttered. Read More

• One Christian killed, 12 kidnapped in Nigeria

  by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, October 11, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  iStock photo

  KADUNA, Nigeria (BP) -- A Baptist woman is dead and 12 Christians including church members, school students and teachers remain kidnapped in two successive incidents in Kaduna, Nigeria, widely attributed to militant Fulani herdsmen.

  In the latest incident, herdsmen killed Ezra Haruna of Godiya Baptist Church in Ungwan Barau village and kidnapped four of her fellow church members, Morning Star News reported Thursday (Oct. 10). Many residents fled into nearby bushes, Morning Star said. Read More

• Brunson reaped spiritual 'hunger' in Turkish prison

  by Diana Chandler, posted Thursday, October 10, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP) -- Two years in filthy Turkish prisons reaped for pastor Andrew Brunson a spiritual "hunger, desperation and running after God" that he hasn't felt since his release.

  "I find that I don't miss prison; I wouldn't want to go back," Brunson told Baptist Press Tuesday (Oct. 8), after nearly a year of freedom. "But the conditions there drove me to seek God with such desperation, and now that I'm out, and I don't have those things driving me, then there's a lessening, a slackening of that hunger and desperation and running after God, and I actually miss that from prison. Read More

• Two Christian aid workers executed in Nigeria 

  by Nigeria correspondent for Morning Star News , posted Wednesday, October 02, 2019 (4 years ago)

  

  Morning Star News

  JOS, Nigeria (BP) -- Islamic extremist group Boko Haram reportedly released a video last week showing the execution of two Christian aid workers in Nigeria.

  Lawrence Duna Dacighir and Godfrey Ali Shikagham, both members of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Plateau state, are shown kneeling while three masked, armed men stand behind them in a video posted Sept. 22 on Boko Haram's Amaq news agency site. The two young men, who had gone to Maiduguri to help build shelters for people displaced by Islamic extremist violence, are then shot from behind. Read More