Global Christian Relief Red List 2025

Analysis 
 
Faltering States and Growing Churches: Christians Squeezed Like Never Before in the Middle East & North Africa
Ten years after ISIS conquered the grand Iragi town of Mosul, its devastating effect on the Christian communities of Iraq remains. Back in 2014, at the time of Mosul's capture, 1,200 Christian families living in the city fled. ISIS was routed from the area in 2017, but Paul Thabit Mekko (the Chaldea Bishop of Algosh) says barely forty of those families have returned. Other estimates, which are harder to verify, allege that less than half of the 80,000 Christians who fled the Nineveh Plain have returned to their villages. Shia militia groups, funded by Iran, have also partially filled the power vacuum in Northern Irag, ensuring that the ever- shrinking population of believers continues to remain marginalized for the foreseeable future.
 
While the world focused on Israel's conflict with Hamas and subsequently Hezbollah, a perceptible reduction in religious freedom was observed through-out the region, especially among believers who are former Muslims. Arrests of former Muslims leading house churches in Iran rose sharply. The same thing happened in Mauritania and Yemen, also Morocco.
 
Expatriate Christians in the UAE reported much higher levels of surveillance, and in Oman more Christians were expelled than usual. The number of indigenous believers in Gaza fell below a thousand. Still, there are some signs of hope. In Amman, the capital of Jordan, a terrible catastrophe was mercifully averted on October 22, 2024, when a nefarious man carrying a backpack entered the Bible Society's bookshop and intended to cause a deadly explosion. He then left suddenly, without attacking.
 
In Turkey, one church leader said "President Erdogan is the best evangelist we have ever had... he has totally divided the country, and 50% of the population detests the Islam he pushes, with predictable effects for the growth of the church." After many centuries, there is a church in the Turkish city of Pergamon again, and the church has unprecedented opportunities throughout the region to provide relief, trauma care and support, especially in Yemen, Lebanon andSudan.
 
Egypt continues to improve its treatment of Christians under President el-Sisi, who is eager to court American aid. Although violence by radicalized mobs remains all too common, the government approved the legalization of nearly three hundred churches in October of 2024, helping shield them from future attacks. As a well-known faith leader in Cairo once said, "If the worldwide church can remember us, and resource us to help with the overwhelming humanitarian needs, we will see growth."
 
The 2025 Global Christian Relief Red List. Washington, D.C.