Article originally published on https://www.acistampa.com/story/33411/cristiani-perseguitati-sono-quasi-400-milioni-nel-mondo-secondo-il-world-watch-list
There are 388 million persecuted Christians worldwide, 8 million more than last year. This is highlighted in the annual report of the Christian NGO Open Doors , the World Watch List. Together with the report on religious freedom by Aid to the Church in Need, whose figures were cited by Leo XIV in his address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See on January 9, the World Watch List is a timely and necessary snapshot of the situation of Christians worldwide . It certifies that the Pope has not failed to define the situation as a “humanitarian crisis.” And it also allows us to look at the areas where the crisis is worst.
The World Watch List focuses not only on the Catholic world but on the entire Christian world. And that’s what makes it important and timely. A decade ago, there was even talk of “Christophobia” instead of “Christian-phobia,” because it was clear that the target of the attacks wasn’t Christians, but their unshakeable faith in Christ.
First, we need to look at the numbers. According to the report, of the 388 million persecuted Christians, 201 million are women and girls, while 110 million are children under 15. The number of countries with “extreme” levels of anti-Christian persecution rises from 13 to 15, with North Korea remaining the worst performer, partly due to the real difficulty in understanding who and how many Christians there are. After the Pyongyang regime, extreme persecution is also observed in Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, and Syria.
Syria, in particular, has gone from “severe” to “extreme,” much to the chagrin of those who saw hope in the overthrow of the Assad regime. This is because, as Cristian Nani, director of Open Doors Italy, emphasized, political power in Damascus and its surroundings is still “fragmented,” and Syria has “just 300,000 Christians left, hundreds of thousands fewer than ten years ago.”
The 2025 Report had reported a decline in Christian killings. But it was a flash in the pan. The 2026 Report reports another increase: from 4,476 to 4,849, or 13 per day. In Nigeria, 3,490 Christians were killed, equal to 70 percent of the world total.
Christians arrested for their faith were 4,712 in 2025, compared to 4,744 in 2024. 3,302 Christians were kidnapped, 4,744 fewer than those recorded in 2024. There was a drastic decrease in attacks against churches (from 7,679 to 3,632) and against homes or shops (from 28,368 to 25,794); while the victims of abuse, rape, and forced marriages increased (from 3,944 to 5,202).
Sub-Saharan Africa is the report’s “special focus” region because of its fragile governments, leaving Christians vulnerable to attack. In particular, the situation is critical in Sudan due to the civil war, but also in Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique , where religious tensions combine with highly complex economic and social situations.
Nigeria is one of the countries most under surveillance. On December 29, the Islamic State attacked Christians in Adamawa State , killing 14 , while on January 4, a group of armed men attacked Demo, in Niger State, causing an unknown number of deaths.
But last year’s headline-grabbing incidents are numerous. In Syria, on June 22, 2025, a suicide attack on the Mar Elias Church killed at least 22 Christians and injured at least 60 others. These numbers have moved Syria up to sixth place among countries at risk, up from 18th in the previous report. In 2024, Christian murders in Damascus and its surroundings were zero, and in 2025, they killed at least 27 people.
The situation worsened because, after the fall of Assad, Ahmad al- Sharaa proclaimed himself president and applied Islamic law , which in a still fragile power leaves a lot of room for abuses against Christians.
If we break the figures down by continent, we see that persecuted Christians account for 1 in 7 in the world. In Africa, the ratio is one in five, in Asia 2 in five, and in Latin America 1 in 12 .
Over the past five years, five of the sub-Saharan nations on the World Watch List have repudiated their governments and two have suspended their constitutions, while the situation in Nigeria and Ethiopia is that of democratic nations where jihadist and rebel groups are preventing the state from extending security and stability to the territories they control.
The Open Doors report marks “Islamic oppression” and “organized crime and corruption” as two of the top three drivers of persecution in 10 of the 14 nations considered to be under “extreme persecution.”
In particular, sub-Saharan Africa has seen risk levels grow exponentially: in ten years , only six sub-Saharan nations were considered dangerous for Christians, while now there are 12 of the twenty most dangerous.
Persecution does not only come from Islamic sources. In Ethiopia, the Orthodox Church has put pressure on Protestant communities who often face hostility at the local level , and, despite a truce signed in 2022 with the government, armed groups in the Amhara and Oromia regions have destroyed, demolished, and looted 25 churches.
China Chapter. The score is the highest ever in the report, but pressure on the Church has increased due to the publication and implementation of new regulations on internet and social media use, part of a broader regulatory process that began in 2018.
Another sensitive statistic concerns forced marriages between Christians and non-Christians. According to the World Watch List, they increased from 821 to 1,147 in 2025. The countries where the practice is most widespread are Nigeria, China, and Niger.
Not everything, however, is going badly. There are improving trends in Bangladesh and Malaysia, which have just left the top 50 at-risk nations, while the situation in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Colombia has neither improved nor worsened in the past year. Churches in these contexts “show remarkable resilience and creativity,” according to the report.