The number of Christians persecuted worldwide jumped to 380 million last year, and while North Korea and Somalia remained the countries with the highest persecution levels respectively, two Central Asian countries saw the steepest increases, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List (WWL).
Kyrgyzstan broke into the list of the 50 worst countries for Christians for the first time since 2013, ranking 47th after coming in at 61st the previous year. Neighboring Kazakhstan witnessed the second highest increase, worsening from 47th to 38th place during the reporting period (Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024).
“No country among the top 50 had a greater score increase than Kyrgyzstan, which added more than seven points to its persecution score,” the WWL report noted. “It was by far the biggest move on the list, and the primary reason was a sharp uptick in violence against the church.”
Kazakhstan’s persecution index rose three points, with only four countries registering a greater increase.
“Only Kyrgyzstan ascended more spots,” according to the WWL report. “And again, the reason was a pronounced increase in violence against Christians.”
The 380 million persecuted Christians worldwide compares with 365 million in the prior year.
“While the numbers and rankings only partially tell the story, they do help draw the world’s attention to the 380 million believers who are suffering for their faith,” said Open Doors U.S. CEO Ryan Brown in a statement. “This presents an opportunity for us to communicate the rest of the story – including the example that our persecuted brothers and sisters are to us and the importance of journeying alongside them in prayer.”
Among the 10 worst countries, Yemen replaced Libya at third place from its No. 5 ranking the previous year. Libya moved to No. 4. Sudan, where internal fighting broke out in April 2023, saw its ranking worsen from No. 8 to No. 5.
Sudan’s WWL total score rose 3 points – only three countries in the top 50 had greater increases – due an intensification of the civil war between Sudan’s army and an alliance of militias. It registered increases in the number of Christians killed and sexually assaulted and Christian homes and businesses attacked.
“Compounding the pressure on Christians is a racial component: Those of indigenous African descent, as opposed to Arab ethnicity, are targets not only for their faith but also for their ethnic identity,” the WWL report stated. “Christians of all backgrounds are trapped in the chaos, unable to flee. Churches are shelled, looted and occupied by the warring parties. The surge in the violence score moved Sudan upward three spots on the list, to fifth.”
In Yemen, civil war since 2015 between ethnic Houthi rebels and the government, which has backing from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has created lawlessness that leads to oppression of minorities, including Christians. Yemeni law outlaws leaving or blaspheming Islam, “for which some Christians have been arrested.”
“Christians found themselves detained by authorities, either because of their faith itself, or in response to bogus accusations made by family or others as a form of anti-Christian harassment,” the WWL report stated. “The increase in Houthi power and influence following the October 2023 attacks on Israel has meant that dozens of Christian house churches no longer can meet.”
The few remaining migrant Christians are legally free to conduct worship in private, but this hasn’t happened for years due to the civil war, Open Doors reported.
“The dangerous instability within Yemen is reflected in the 4.6-point increase in its score on the World Watch List, a change that was driven primarily by an increase in anti-Christian violence,” the report stated. “Only Kyrgyzstan registered a greater increase in total score.”
Rounding out the worst 10 countries were Eritrea at No. 6 (from fourth the prior year), Nigeria at No. 7 (from sixth), Pakistan at No. 8 (from seventh), Iran at No. 9 and Afghanistan at No. 10, the latter two having the same respective rankings the prior year. India maintained its prior year ranking of 11th worst in the world.
Other countries whose rankings slipped substantially from the prior year were Mexico, which went from 37th to 31st, the only country in Latin America whose persecution score rose, though it remains behind 26th-ranked Cuba and 30th-ranked Nicaragua; Syria, which fell from 18th place to 12th; the Democratic Republic of Congo, from 41st to 35th; Myanmar, from 17th to 13th; and China, from 19th place to 15th. The Central African Republic, where an Islamist insurgency has targeted Christians, dipped from 28th place to 27th.
Open Doors noted that Mexico’s total persecution index of 71 represents a 2.4-point increase from the prior year and was the country’s highest ever, driven by cartel violence. Mexico’s violence score of 14.6 was the highest it has ever received and was the highest among all Latin American countries.
“Organized crime is a prominent concern in Mexico, and cartels battling each other often target church leaders and Christian organizations, especially those who attempt to broker peace or who provide assistance to victims of violence and intimidation,” the report stated. “World Watch List researchers during the most recent reporting period noted a jump in the number of Christians killed and abducted because of their faith, as well as an increase in attacks on Christian homes and other property.”
The last time Mexico ranked that high was 2005.
Persecution of Christians in Nicaragua received much media attention in the past year, and its overall score increased by 1 point even as its ranking remained at No. 30.
“About the most that can be said about the situation for Christians in Nicaragua is that, while violence against Christians remains at an all-time high, it could have been worse in other ways,” the report stated. “The autocratic President Daniel Ortega continued to crack down on opposition voices, and that has made church leaders, who are among the main critics of the government, particularly vulnerable targets for reprisals.”
Sub-Saharan Africa
More Christians live in Africa than on any other continent, and the growing targeting of Christians continued during the reporting period.
Chronic government instability has created a vacuum filled by opportunistic Islamic militants, and since the 2023 WWL, the violence score for 15 sub-Saharan countries included among the top 50 has risen by an average of 1 point.
“Violence in 13 of those 15 countries – including Burkina Faso, Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – is rated in the ‘extremely high’ category,” the WWL reported. “
Nigeria remained among the most dangerous places on earth for Christians. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,100 were in Nigeria, according to the WWL.
“Nigeria stands apart from this group of sub-Saharan countries, but only because there was not much room for conditions to worsen: Its score on the 2025 World Watch List is almost identical to its 2024 score,” the WWL reported. “The measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology.”
In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report.
Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.
The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.
“A 2024 report by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa concluded that among the 30,880 civilians killed in Nigeria from 2020 through 2023, the number of Christians was 22,360, while the number of Muslims killed was 8,315 – a disparity of nearly 3-to-1 in a country where the Christian and Muslim shares of the population are roughly equal,” it stated. “During Christmas 2023, at minimum 295 Christians were killed by more than 3,000 Fulani militants fanning out to 38 villages in Plateau state, as reported by Truth Nigeria.”
New president Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023 brought more Christians into government posts to help balance the Muslim-heavy sector, but it appeared to have no effect on levels of violence directed at Christians, the report stated.
“On the evening of Easter Sunday in 2024, for example, villages in southern Kaduna state were attacked in an area heavy with military installations,” the WWL reported. “Witnesses told the news media they saw no government effort to protect the victims.”
In northern Africa, Algeria’s total persecution score was 2 points less than the prior year – because all Protestant churches had already been forced to close and there were none left to target, according to the WWL report.
That reality dropped Algeria’s score for violence, bringing down its overall index, but other forms of pressure on Christians intensified.
“The number of Christians awaiting trial and sentencing is at an all-time high,” the report noted. “Others keep a low profile to avoid prosecution under laws that regulate non-Muslim religious practice. The government has been attempting various forms of financial and organizational pressure to weaken churches, with a particular focus on online Christian activities. The overall pressure, in combination with the closure of the churches, has forced many Algerian Christians into isolation.”
Central Asia
As for the decline in religious freedom in Kyrgyzstan, various incidents of violence contributed.
The Baptist Union reported that on multiple occasions local residents hurled stones at the office of a Christian organization in Karakul in an attempt to drive it from its property. In March, representatives of the State Commission on Religious Affairs, some armed, raided St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Talas, forcing departing worshippers back inside; they held the congregation there until two Slovak nuns signed a statement admitting to “illegal missionary activities” and “spreading their ideology.”
“Such assaults helped to drive up Kyrgyzstan’s historically low violence score faster than in any other country,” Open Doors reported. “It happened against a backdrop of a presidency that has been concentrating power to itself for several years.”
New laws promoting vaguely defined notions of cultural traditions and national values have undermined the rule of law and restricted freedom of expression, it noted.
In Kazakhstan, the regime since 2010 under President Nursultan Nazarbayev has become more authoritarian, and a change in leadership in 2019 brought no improvement for Christians, according to the report.
Police raided four worship meetings of three unregistered Protestant churches in southern Kazakhstan, and at least 20 Christian women were sexually abused because of their faith and at least as many forcibly married to Muslim men, the WWL reported.
“Such numbers are a tiny share in a country of 20 million people, about a quarter of whom identify as Christian, but they are a noticeable departure from the immediate past, especially as the larger Orthodox church does not seem to be affected,” the report noted. “Protestants are a small minority in this quarter of Christians.”
The WWL report provided a snapshot of persecution worldwide:
· 4,476 Christians were killed for their faith, of whom 3,100 deaths, or 69 percent, were in Nigeria.
· 3,944 Christians were sexually assaulted, harassed or forcibly married to non-Christians.
· There were 28,368 attacks on Christian homes, shops and businesses, nearly 20,000 of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
· There were 4,744 Christians detained, arrested or sentenced for faith-related reasons, with more than 2,100 taking place in India.
· 54,780 Christians were beaten, threatened or physically and mentally abused, including about 10,000 in Pakistan.
· 209,771 Christians were forced to leave their homes or go into hiding or exile, with more than 40,000 of them in Myanmar (Burma).
