According to data collected by the Foundation Aid to the Church in Need, 12 priests and 5 women religious were murdered in different countries in 2022, while 42 priests and 9 nuns were kidnapped.
Around the world, the areas where Christians suffer the most discrimination and sometimes persecution are in vast parts of Africa, most notably in the Sahel, Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, and, outside this continent, in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Myanmar), as well as in North Korea and China.
The director of the Italian branch of the Aid to the Church Foundation says that between 2021 and 2022 nearly 8,000 Christians were murdered out of hatred for the Faith or persecuted because Christianity contains a core of social justice that is unwelcome to jihadists and alarms other para-terrorist groups.
Particularly frightening to them is the activity of missionaries, who are perceived as peacemakers, as people who build channels of dialogue between differing groups, and who are considered close to the West and its values.