According to Open Doors USA, Christians are being persecuted in at least 50 countries around the globe, a figure that equals to 1 in 7 Christian believers who are in physical danger for their faith.
David Curry, who leads Open Doors USA, says North Korea has slipped to No. 2 on the organization’s World Watch List due to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and its violence perpetrated against Christians there in the name of Islam.
“What has happened there isn't that North Korea has improved,” Curry explains. “Indeed, their score has worsened as well.”
Although the U.S. State Department removed Nigeria from its “Countries of Particular Concern,” Open Doors rates that dangerous country high, too, because tens of thousands of Christians have been slaughtered by Muslim terrorists. What is worrisome about Nigeria, Curry says, is the government there could stop the violence and killing, and protect its own people.
“It's a democracy,” he says, “but you've got a situation where this government in Nigeria has lost control of the upper half of their country.”
