On Sunday morning Dame Sarah Mullally, the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, stood in a church in Birzeit in the occupied West Bank and told the congregation she would use her role to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve. It was a specific, named, actionable commitment. A promise from the senior Christian voice in Britain to one community in one conflict.
Search for an equivalent promise made to Nigeria’s Christians and you will not find it.
In 2024 alone, over 4,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria, the majority by Islamist Fulani militia and Boko Haram affiliates. The Open Doors World Watch List, the most comprehensive annual survey of Christian persecution globally, documents severe persecution across more than 50 countries. Iraq’s Christian population has collapsed from 1.5 million before 2003 to fewer than 250,000 today, one of the most complete destructions of an ancient Christian community in recorded history. The Coptic Christians of Egypt face sustained institutional discrimination and periodic massacres. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing what some researchers describe as a slow motion genocide of Christian communities, conducted largely by Islamist groups, largely in silence.
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