5 of the World’s Most Dangerous Places for Christians: Shocking Persecution Stories

5 of the World’s Most Dangerous Places for Christians: Shocking Persecution Stories

Billy Hallowell

As Christian persecution rages, Joel Veldkamp, head of international communications at Christian Solidarity International, continues sounding the alarm on the dire state of affairs.

Veldkamp recently appeared on the “Into the Supernatural” podcast to reveal five locations where he believes persecution has reached a fever pitch. The first nation he referenced is Nigeria, where he described a “slow-motion ethnic cleansing campaign.” 

“There’s a region of the country called the Middle Belt, where most of the indigenous people who live there are Christians from hundreds of different people groups who are farmers,” he said.

“But there’s another tribe — a Muslim tribe called the Fulani — who are moving into this area, and they are extremely well-armed, and they formed a lot of militias, and, for the past eight years, really, they’ve been carrying out massacres of Christian villagers again, and again, and again on a weekly basis or more.”

Chaos in the region has led to a “slow expulsion of Christians,” with some recent events making international headlines. With each massacre, more and more believers leave the area.

“It is a stream of massacres, but it’s also a growing population of over a million people now who are just homeless, displaced, have no access to education or means of livelihood,” he said. “This is … probably the biggest persecution crisis in the world right now.”

Veldkamp also addressed other nations where persecution is raging, including Sudan, where he said there is a massive power struggle between “two Islamist factions” that used to run the nation together before turning on one another. The chaos has led to millions of deaths. 

Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023 amid a struggle between the nation’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group. You can read more about that crisis here.

Veldkamp also spoke about Pakistan, Armenia, and Syria, addressing persecution issues unfolding inside these nations.

“Armenia … was a nation that converted to Christianity en masse in the year 301 AD,” she said. “And ever since then, its national identity, its culture has been intimately tied to Christianity.”

Veldkamp continued, “And this Christianity survived centuries of oppression by different empires, it survived the genocide of 1915, it survived 70 years of communist rule under communist Russia, and today, the genocide is continuing.”

He spoke about Azerbaijan targeting Armenia, as the mostly Christian-identifying population of Nagorno-Karabakh, a small landlocked region between the nations, was driven out.

“The entire population of this region called Nagorno-Karabakh, 120,000 people, had to flee from their lives to escape the … military advance,” Veldkamp said. “Today, the problem has kind of doubled in on itself because the Armenian government lost this war.”

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Famines Unavoidable

‘FAMINES UNAVOIDABLE because of Strait of Hormuz closure'

Prof. Steve Keen:

‘The extent to which we’re reliant upon chemical fertilisers derived from oil feedstock is extremely high. In the absence of the Haber-Bosch process and the process for producing both nitrogenous fertilisers and phosphate-based fertilisers, without the oil, you can’t produce them. And 30% of the world’s fertiliser passes through the Strait of Hormuz, roughly speaking. Now, without the fertiliser in general, the carrying capacity of the planet falls from about 8.5 billion people, which is how many people we have right now, down to between 1 and 2 billion. That’s the extent to which we’re reliant upon petroleum-based fertilisers for food output. If you lose 30% of the fertiliser that the planet relies upon, at the extreme that implies that something of the order of only 6 billion people can be supported by our food systems, down from the current 8.5 to 9 billion people we’re supporting now. There is some buffer inside there in terms of roughly 30% of food being wasted. But the extent to which we rely upon a continuous flow of petroleum-based fertilisers cannot be overestimated. And if we have a disruption to the supply of those fertilisers, anywhere from 10 or 20 million people through to the ludicrous scale, I have to admit, of 2 billion, that’s the potential range of disaster.’

The Red Sea trap: How Saudi Arabia’s pipeline gamble became a Houthi hostage crisis

The Red Sea trap: How Saudi Arabia’s pipeline gamble became a Houthi hostage crisis

Lance D Johnson

The world is watching the Middle East spiral into a multi-front conflict, but the real story is not being told in Washington’s press briefings. The Houthi declaration of a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia,following strikes on Sana’a Airport, is not an act of random aggression but rather, a calculated execution of a strategy that Iran and its proxies have been building for years.

The United States, having formed a 10-nation coalition to protect Red Sea trade, is now confronting a reality it helped create: a network of choke points, from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Strait of Hormuz, that can be squeezed at will.

Key points:

• Houthis have declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia following airstrikes on Sana’a Airport.
• The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed due to the US-Iran war, cutting oil flows by at least 10 million barrels per day.
• Saudi Arabia’s backup pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu is now vulnerable to Houthi attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb.
• Global oil supplies face unprecedented strain as alternative shipping routes cannot replace lost capacity.
• The US-led Red Sea coalition risks direct confrontation with Houthi forces, potentially expanding the war.

The chokepoint war nobody anticipated

The Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, in a video posted on X, condemned what he called an “unjust and oppressive siege” of the country. He declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia,effective immediately, based on the equation of “an eye for an eye.” The spokesman warned that “any foolish act” by Saudi Arabia “will be met with a comprehensive and decisive escalation.” This is not empty rhetoric. The Houthis have demonstrated their ability to strike ships in the Red Sea with precision, forcing major shipping companies to take the longer route around Africa. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported that four small boats carrying four to five people each approached a vessel off the coast of Djibouti with suspicious maneuvers, though no weapons were seen. The pattern is clear: the Houthis are probing, testing, and preparing.

The Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil chokepoint, is already effectively closed. Before the conflict, about 20 million barrels of oil passed through this waterway daily. Now, that number has plummeted to extremely low levels. Major oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait have been forced to cut their daily crude output by at least 10 million barrels because they cannot ship it out. The US launched strikes against Iran for a tenth consecutive night on Tuesday, with both sides signaling that the truce was effectively over. This is not a temporary disruption. It is a fundamental reshaping of global energy logistics.

Saudi Arabia has a backup plan, a 1,200-kilometer pipeline that moves oil across the country to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The port is now exporting a record 4 million barrels of oil per day, up from 1.4 million before the crisis. This is the kingdom’s lifeline, its only remaining route to the global market. But the oil tankers leaving Yanbu must pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which the Houthis have now threatened to blockade. The Red Sea coast is central to Saudi Arabia’s non-oil growth, including luxury tourism and manufacturing. Overcapacity in regional ports and weak investor interest are worsening the situation. The ambitious plans of Saudi Arabia to transform its economy and reduce dependency on oil revenues have encountered significant obstacles in the form of Houthi attacks on the Red Sea.

A US aircraft carrier strike group is already deployed in the Red Sea. A Houthi attempt to fully block the strait would risk a direct confrontation with US forces, which analysts suggest is a key reason they have not yet done so. But the Houthis have made their position clear. Albu Qaidi, a spokesperson for the Houthis, told Al Jazeera that they would challenge any US-led coalition in the Red Sea, pointing out that Yemen’s military establishment is present in areas under Houthi control and warning that they will continue to target ships passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. Their actions, they claim, are aimed at protecting people in Gaza. The top Houthi official Mohammed Abdul Salam, also a senior negotiator, said the Houthis’ attacks are not an act of defiance but a response to any new coalition’s potential aggression. This could lead to a broader conflict in the region.

The situation is creating an unprecedented strain on global oil supplies. While the Red Sea route offers a limited alternative for Saudi Arabia, other major Gulf producers like Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar lack the pipelines to redirect their exports. The total amount of oil that can be shipped via alternative routes is estimated to be less than a third, or even a quarter, of what used to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The world is waking up to a new reality: the energy supply chain, once thought invulnerable, is now held hostage by a network of regional conflicts that Washington cannot control and will not admit it created. The question is not whether the Houthis will tighten the noose, but whether the United States is willing to fight on another front to keep the oil flowing.

Will Iran’s Plan Of Tanking The Global Economy Cause The US To Pull Back?

Will Iran’s Plan Of Tanking The Global Economy Cause The US To Pull Back?

Erick Stakelbeck

Iran says it is now engaged in a “full-scale war” with the United States. Iranian President Mahmoud Pezeshkian, who is supposedly one of the more “moderate” figures among Iran’s fanatical jihadist leadership, made the remarks earlier today, and judging by events that unfolded over the weekend, the regime clearly wants to escalate.

In response to heavy United States airstrikes, Iran continued to bombard its Arab-Muslim neighbors like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan with missiles and drones. You may ask. “Why would they attack their fellow Muslims?” It doesn’t make sense on paper, but there are a number of factors to consider.

First off, Iran wants to destroy the economies of these countries, which have friendly relations with America. In the process, they would tank the global economy and drive up oil and gas prices, which they believe would then force the US to stand down.

But there’s another factor where things really escalate. The U.S. has bases in several of these countries, making them ideal targets for the regime.

Over the weekend, we learned that two US soldiers were killed in an Iranian attack on Jordan, another was killed in Iraq, and several more were wounded.

By now, it should be very clear to all involved that Iranian leaders have no intention of agreeing to any sort of credible deal with the United States. For Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), it is all jihad all the time. This is who they are, and this is what they do.

First, Iran broke the ceasefire with repeated attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and now they are back to killing U.S. troops. Folks, it is long past time to finish the job in Iran, and it appears that President Trump is now leaning in that direction. More U.S. military assets are heading to the region, and over the past nine days, the president has ordered massive airstrikes throughout Iran.

According to U.S. Central Command, “CENTCOM assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Two big questions going forward are whether the US will start targeting what’s left of Iran’s leadership and whether Israel will rejoin the fight alongside the United States. We know that Europe and NATO have no stomach for the fight, and most of the Arab nations are also MIA despite being bombarded by Iran on a nearly daily basis.

Why are nations so reluctant when right now is a golden opportunity to cast the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism into the ash heap of history, once and for all?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when asked what comes next for Iran, responded: “I don’t think it’ll be good for Iran. Iran’s economy is in shambles. They’re at 300 percent inflation, particularly on life-sustaining goods. They have dwindling revenues to meet even their own payroll. They have food shortages. They have a drought, which we didn’t cause. But they have a gasoline shortage and a fuel shortage. All these problems existed before all of this began. They’ve just gotten worse. They will continue to get worse.”

Rubio continued: “Iran is a rich country. One of the reasons why Iran is in shambles is because every penny that this regime there gets, be it through sanctions relief or through the oil they’re able to get out, they invested in [terror]. 

They spent billions of dollars supporting militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, and Hamas. They should be spending billions of dollars supporting the people of Iran. They should be spending billions of dollars building their country. But instead, they use it to sponsor terrorism. 

I think there’s a growing awareness of that inside of Iran. And I think there’s even a growing awareness of that among some of the people in their government… There’s a tension there. We’ll see how that plays out. I can’t tell you how it’s going to play out. It’s up to them.”

It has always been up to them, but for 47 years, they have chosen terror, mayhem, and war. They are driven by an apocalyptic Islamic End Times ideology. The president realizes this and is planning accordingly.

Secretary Rubio, questioned about whether he sees a “diplomatic off-ramp” with Iran, replied: “It has to be real. It has to be a deal that they’re willing to live by. Iran, a week ago, was supposed to put out a statement saying that the Straits of Hormuz would be open, that they would no longer attack shipping, and instead of doing that, they attacked three ships. I think that was last Friday or Saturday. So, I mean, their behavior has to change in order for ours to change.”

Iran’s strategy now clearly is to broaden the war and make the entire region and the world economy feel the pain. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels just announced that they are enforcing a blockade on all naval traffic from Saudi Arabia passing through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait—another crucial waterway where some 10 to 12 percent of the world’s trade flows through every day.

Create chaos and force America back to the negotiating table as it calculates the cost of continuing military action, especially with midterm elections right around the corner. That is Iran’s plan. But will it work?

Let’s pray for President Trump, for the administration, and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Big decisions lie ahead for two individuals, whom I have called a pair of modern-day Winston Churchills, in a sea of Chamberlains across the West. Pray that God would give them wisdom.

US CENTCOM begins 11th consecutive night of strikes on Iran

US CENTCOM begins 11th consecutive night of strikes on Iran

REUTERS, JONAH DAVIDOV

The US military said late on Tuesday it began its latest strikes on Iran, marking the 11th consecutive night of American attacks.

"The strikes are designed to continue degrading Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," the US Central Command said in a statement on X/Twitter.

Loud explosions were heard in parts of Iran's Bushehr County, according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.

Bushehr is home to the Bushehr Power Plant, Iran's first and only commercial nuclear reactor. The region also houses a naval base that is critical for the functioning of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).

Regime-affiliated Fars News Agency cited East Azerbaijan officials saying that a military site was struck near Tabriz in a US air attack.

Iranian state TV also said that air defenses were activated throughout the capital of Tehran.